Whitehand Hall

Whitehand Hall opened in 1921 as Albert Pike Hall, a men's dormitory owned and operated by the Masonic Lodge of McAlester. The University of Oklahoma later purchased it in the summer of 1946. On August 14 that same year, the building was renamed in memory of Captain Robert Emmett Whitehand. Captain Whitehand was a promising writer, play write [sic] and assistant professor of drama at the University of Oklahoma. , Robert Whitehand was born in San Francisco in March of 1910. His family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma and Captain Whitehand graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1933 with a BA degree in journalism. He later attended the University of Iowa and received an M.A. degree in 1936 and a M.F.A. in 1941. Captain Whitehand was the author of Precious Land and numerous other plays presented by the University drama school. He was hailed as a promising young American writer of short stories, essays and radio plays. J. Edward O'Brian in 1938 published a collection of plays by young writers and included a play by Captain Robert Whitehand to whom he dedicated the book. , He was a faculty member from 1938 until his departure in 1942 to serve [in] the United States Air Force in combat during World War II. Captain Whitehand planned to write about the United States Air Force and its role in Europe during World War II. Unfortunately, these plans were never fulfilled. His airplane went down over France on March 27, 1945 and he was killed in action. In honoring Captain Whitehand through the naming of this building, the University also remembered the other faculty members, students, staff, and alumni who served their country during World War II. , Whitehand Hall has served as a men's dormitory and then as faculty offices and architectural studios. Following a major renovation in the mid 1990's, the building became home to the offices of Development and of Public Affairs and the International Programs Center which was established in 1995 with Ambassador Edward Perkins, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and Director General of the U.S. Foreign Service, as its first director.