Gaylord Hall

Gaylord Hall was completed in the fall of 2004 and became the home of the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Its construction was made possible by a generous gift of $22 million by Edward L. Gaylord on behalf of his family, including his wife Thelma and their four children, Christy Gaylord Everest, Louise Gaylord Bennett, Mary Gaylord McClean, and E. K. Gaylord, II. The gift was made in the spring of 2000. At that time it was the largest single gift to a journalism program at a public university in the United States. , The gift was used to construct Gaylord Hall and to elevate the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to College status. It also created an endowment for faculty positions, student scholarships, and new programs. An additional gift to the building was made by a foundation established by Edward L. Gaylord's sister Edith Kinney Gaylord, for whom the library in the building is named. , The Gaylord family has played a pioneering role in the history of Oklahoma journalism. The late E. K. Gaylord and his wife Inez made some of the largest private gifts to the program in the 1920s. , The college has a long and rich history. The first journalism course was taught in the English Department in 1905. The university's program in journalism is the oldest in the Southwest. In 1913, H. H. Herbert, a young newspaperman from Illinois was hired as the first journalism teacher. Because of his extraordinary leadership the program was given School status. , In 1916 the School became the founding home of the Oklahoma Interscholastic Press, the nation's oldest group of its kind assisting high school journalists and teachers. , The early focus of the School was in preparing students for careers at newspapers and magazines and in advertising. Broadcast journalism was added in the 1930s with the addition of radio news. Public relations was formalized as a program in the 1950s and the school's Professional Writing Program was established. , By the end of the Twentieth century the School offered programs in advertising, broadcasting and electronic media, internet journalism, print journalism, professional writing and public relations.