THE CAMPBELL HALL LEGACY
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
ALUMNI STORIES
SADIE B. CAMPBELL’S IMPACT
THE RICH HISTORY OF CAMPBELL HALL
Campbell Hall in rememberance
BAILEY KLINKHAMMER Executive Editor
“Campbell Hall wasn’t just a dorm, it was a home away from home where we all felt like family,” Carla Murphy recalled her time in Campbell Hall. The dormitory housed thousands while it was online at UNI. The university announced this semester that Campbell Hall would be torn down in the coming years, presumably sometime over a summer break, so as to not disrupt teaching.
What was once Campbell Hall will become greenspace on campus, and the physical memories of the hall will be razed. But, the history of the hall and the memories of its residents live on through those who share their stories of living there. From one of the first groups of residents in the all-female hall, to resident assistants who helped keep the hall safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, Campbell Hall housed generations of Panthers. While the building’s physical presence on campus will fade, the everlasting presence of memories will press on.
Formerly known as North Hall
Originally called North Hall, the Board of Regents approved the women’s dormitory for construction and furnishing in 1950. The hall would house junior and senior women attending UNI, to accommodate the post-war education boom and the attraction the Iowa State Teachers College was garnering amongst women. The North Hall dormitory wasn’t ready for student living until the fall academic year of 1952, a full year after its original finish date. The original first residents of North Hall would spend the 1951-1952 academic year in Lawther Hall, doubled up with the female residents of Lawther. In May of 1952, just three months before the first residents of North Hall would move into the brand new dorm, the Iowa Board of Education moved to rename the hall to Campbell Hall, after Sadie B. Campbell, who served at the UNI Dean of Women. She would retire that July, after dedicating 23 years of her career to the women of UNI.
Alumna Sandra Hoelzen describes living in Campbell Hall after living in both
COURTESY/CARLA MURPHY
While Campbell Hal residents got up to “good fun,” they also volunteered.
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Bartlett and Lawther in the early 1960s as “pure luxury.” Although Hoelzen only spent nine weeks residing in Campbell Hall, her time cut short due to student teaching, Hoelzen echoes Murphy’s statement, calling the hall home. “I remember it as being more ‘like home’ if that is possible,” Hoelzen told the Northern Iowan. Campbell Hall ties generations of women together through a lineage of camaraderie. Graduates from the 1960s to 2021 all use one word to describe the historic building: “home.” The walls that will eventually be torn down hold the memories of laughter, holes from posters and photos nailed into the wall, desks that students have poured over working on final projects or studying for their next exam.
Making your own fun in Campbell Hall
The hall even “went Greek” in 1981, with resident Roxanne Vincent piloting the mock Greek society U Beta Nunna in Campbell. Northern Iowan feature reporter Dan Nierling originally reported on U Beta Nunna’s effort to improve Campbell Hall’s overall
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image in September of 1981, which included an open house on the night of the induction ceremony.
U Beta Nunna is just one of many shenanigans that the women of Campbell Hall got involved in over the course of the 70 years that the building housed Panthers. Elizabeth Kelsey graduated from UNI in 2021, and lived in Campbell Hall during her self-described “rocky” freshman year. “I laughed at the sight of dozens of plastic cups filled with water that had been placed outside one of the nearby boys’ doors as a booby trap, in retaliation for some other crazy freshman prank,” said Kelsey.
Laura Stanish, served as a resident assistant during Campbell Hall’s final years housing Panthers, from 2019 to 2021. During her time as an RA, Stanish depicted the shenanigans that she got up to, “One of my first memories in the building was playing hide and seek and hiding in an electrical closet, squeezing behind the electrical box in there,” Stanish told the Northern Iowan. Stanish and her resident assistant friends pursued fun and laughter during their time in Campbell Hall,
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she continues, “Other highlights include catching a gerbil in one of my residents’ rooms, the Tom Petty shrine that some freshman boys put together after his death, riding the forbidden elevator and getting into a Twitter fight on the Campbell Hall account with Hagemann Hall, before DOR [University Housing and Dining, formerly known as the Department of Residence) made us delete the tweets, although I still have the screenshots, before writing them a nice Valentine’s Day poem to make up for it.”
Campbell Hall has a rich history of students creating fun out of thin air within the dorm hall. One of the UNI traditions, the Interlude, was born in Campbell Hall. Ian Goldsmith, Tyler Wright and Scott Connerley conceptualized and filmed the dance in Campbell Hall. The dance soon took off, with first lady of the time, Michelle Obama, and former Governor Terry Branstad even participating in the dance. The instruction video, filmed in Campbell Hall, will forever memorialize the student’s fun and creativity, which spread throughout the dormitory. See CAMPBELL, page 3
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COURTESY/CONNIE HANSEN
Connie Hansen, associate director in the Office of Student Involvement recalls her time in Campbell fondly.
CAMPBELL
continued from page 2
Forming forever relationships
While students made their own fun in the dorm, they also formed friendships and relationships that have lasted a lifetime. Alumni have found their husbands and wives through Campbell Hall, as well as members of their wedding parties. Connie Hansen is a former resident of Campbell Hall, and works in the Student Involvement and Events Services Office as the Associate Director. Hansen has worked in various roles at UNI since her graduation, dedicating over 20 years of her life to the university. Hansen’s entire family is deeply entwined with the university and Campbell Hall, with her two children both choosing to live in Campbell during their time at UNI. Her daughter eventually went on to marry her brother’s freshman year roommate. “My son always says ‘Panther Picks really works!’” Hansen laughed. Hansen and her daughter are two of many Panthers who found their significant other in the dorm.
It wasn’t just romantic relationships that built Campbell Hall and its legacy, it’s the connections that residents made with each other and the university itself. Hansen recalls the Tara House return rate being nearly 100%, with residents just waiting to be able to return to their home-away-from-home community. “We just wanted to come back to our communities,” said Hansen. “It was such a special thing to find your people on campus, and once you found them, something just clicked.”
According to Amy Stoermer, Panther Picks also connected residents to forever friendships in Campbell. Stoermer decided to enroll in the random roommate assignment program in the fall of 1995, and the Panther Picks system had selected Cindy, a sophomore at UNI. According to Stoermer, after she had met Cindy, the rest was history. “We moved into our 3rd floor room, had our dads build us the long loft, and we made the place our own. Being away from home for the first time wasn’t always easy, but Cindy took me under her wing, even calling me her ‘Little Baby Freshman,’” said Stoemer. “ There were SO many great memories made in that building.” Stoermer said that eventually, Cindy met her husband that year. In 1998, they were married, and Stoermer showed up for Cindy as one of her bridesmaids. “I met so many amazing young women, it was still an all-girls dorm at the time, and made such great memories in that building while I was there,” said Stoermer.
Hansen also recalled warm days in the Campbell Hall courtyard, when residents would lay out in the sun and pretend to do homework. “Everyone would put their radios in their windows and tune to the same radio sta-
tion, so it was really loud and everyone could hear the music,” Hansen said. “There was always music playing, it was always just so much fun.”
Meghan and Drew Papke
getting lost.”
According to Murphy, it was the involvement in the residence experience that made her time in Campbell and at UNI that much more enjoyable. “We loved hav-
Hall. Campbell served as UNI’s Dean of Women from 1929 to 1952, where she evolved the teaching program while the university was still called the Iowa Teacher’s College. Her legacy
also met in Campbell Hall. “My husband and I have a special connection to the building – we met there in 2004. He lived in Campbell Hall for all four years of his college experience, while I stayed there for two years as a transfer student,” Meghan told the Northern Iowan.
The Papke’s returning to Campbell Hall helps prove Hansen’s assertion that residents wanted to return to their communities – something Hansen thinks is missing from resident hall communities in more recent years. “Residence halls are a little different now, but Campbell was always just a little different. The connections that I had in Campbell at that time, those weren’t connections people were making even in Bender at that time,” said Hansen. “There was something special about Campbell.”
Murphy echoed Hansen’s sentiments regarding the community that was cultivated in the hall. “I loved Anatevka House. We would gather in hallways to talk or have fun competitions. We decorated doors for birthdays or special occasions. Every year we created house t-shirts to wear around campus,” said Murphy. “One year we worked as a team and painted a new wall mural for our house. We had a mural down at one end of the floor, but the landing at the main stairs didn’t have anything to indicate our house from the other house we shared a floor with, so visitors were always
ing a dining hall in the building, especially in the winter so we didn’t have to walk outside to go eat. I remember many of the Greek members would dine there too,” said Murphy. “I had a few people on my floor who worked in the dining hall. By having a dining hall in our building, it allowed for floors to do special events such as house dinners where we could dress up and have different formal dining experiences as well.” Whether it was the rotary phones on the wall in the Anatevka House or suntanning in the Campbell courtyard, Murphy accredits her time in Campbell to the connections she made while she was an undergraduate student.
While connections were bountiful in Campbell Hall, Hansen says that the rarity of these networks, juxtaposed with their abundance in Campbell, made the dorm a hub that shaped student leadership. “You can trace back student leaders and leaders on our campus today, a lot of them came from Campbell,” said Hansen. “I think that just speaks to the impacts of the residence hall and how it still continues to shape the UNI community.”
Sadie B. Campbell’s everlasting legacy
While the legacy of former Campbell Hall residents continue to shape the future of the UNI community, it was Campbell’s legacy that created a need for what was once known as North
happier and better adjusted college people. In this way Miss Campbell serves the interest of all students as individuals and as groups. With such a full time job, Miss Campbell has had very little time to develop her own interests, however, she has traveled widely. Several years ago she visited Guatemala and two years ago she enjoyed a very interesting tour of Europe...It is with gratitude for these 21 years of whole-hearted service to all students at the Teachers College, that we dedicate this 1951 Old Gold to Sadie B. Campbell.”
was so impactful that ultimately, the Iowa Board of Education moved to name the hall after her. Campbell ultimately passed in 1965. But, even after her passing, her legacy lived on in the all-girls hall.
“There was this portrait of her that hung in the dorm,” said Hansen. “And it was like, no matter where you were standing in the room, she was looking at you … I’m not saying that Campbell Hall is haunted by any means, but her presence was felt by the women who lived there.” Hansen affectionately dubbed Campbell as “Sadie B.” while discussing her legacy on UNI’s students and campus. “You can tell she was a powerhouse, I think it speaks to her impact on education in Iowa, especially for women, to have a residence hall named after you here.”
In her time as the Dean of Women at UNI, Campbell travelled to places like England and California to vacation and attend conferences regarding the education of women. The 1951 edition of the Old Gold was dedicated to Campbell. Her dedication reads, “Under the direction of Miss Campbell and the residence directors, the dorms are organized to aid the girls in living and working together democratically. Miss Campbell tries to keep these dorms as comfortable and pleasant as possible. In addition to all of these jobs, Miss Campbell is ever ready to counsel any of the co-eds and strives to help them become
Campbell’s dedication to the cultural advancement of Iowan women is detailed through the UNI archives, and felt by former Campbell residents. It was Campbell’s responsibility to ensure the comfort and care of each of the women enrolled at UNI, which increased significantly after the World War II education boom. The 1945 Old Gold details Campbell’s responsibilities. “In addition to her various duties as Dean of Women, Miss Campbell serves on the Student Welfare Committee, and helps solve problems in the Commons Food Service, advises the Student Council and maintains numerous committees for the smooth running of the activities for college women. As dean, she advises the Women’s League, and supervises all women’s housing to see that each girl finds comfortable and adequate living quarters in the modern women’s dormitories.”
As dean, Campbell was typically the first administrative face that women at UNI saw, as she guided them through the housing and orientation processes. She remained their go-to administrative point of contact as the female students navigated their time at UNI, advising multiple committees and student organizations. Campbell maintained high standards and expectations for the women at UNI. “We joked often, when we would do something that wasn’t the most classy thing in the world, ‘Sadie B. is watching!’” Hansen laughed. “She was an incredibly classy lady and although she might have looked down at our shenanigans, we could still feel the weight of her impact decades later.”
A farewell to Campbell Hall
The building that’s stood tall for decades on the corner of 23rd Street will come down in the coming years, but the legacy that Campbell and all of those who felt her presence while living in the residence hall will live on through UNI’s campus. While the physical reminder of these memories may vanish, the presence of its legacy cannot be razed. ‘64 graduate Hoeltzen says, “I am sad that the university is ‘taking it down,’ but I will have my memories. It has aged and so have I. I will miss seeing it, but I have my memories and no one can take that away.”
COURTESY/UNI OLD GOLD
A portrait of Sadie B. Campbell from the 1951 Old Gold, which is dedicated to her.
From UNI to WCTV: Caroline Christensen finds purpose in journalism
For Caroline Christensen, a 2024 graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, college was more than a place to earn a degree — it was a launching pad into journalism, leadership and lifelong growth.
Christensen majored in history and political communication, minoring in digital media leadership and journalism. However, her experience at UNI extended far beyond the classroom. She was involved with the Northern Iowan all four years of her college career, beginning as a staff writer in 2020 before moving up to news editor during her sophomore year. As a senior, she served as executive editor, a role that helped shape both her professional skills and personal confidence.
“My extracurricular involvements at UNI in particular helped me prepare for life beyond college,” Christensen said. “I gained so many skills and connections that proved to be crucial once I graduated.”
In addition to her work with the Northern Iowan, Christensen was also active in Northern Iowa Stu -
digital content creator.
dent Government and Panther Ambassadors. These roles, she said, allowed her to build lasting friendships and push herself outside of her comfort zone.
“The NI was a space I could grow as a writer and as a person,” she said. “Joining the NI put me on a path toward journalism, even though I wasn’t even majoring in it.”
Her involvement ultimately led to a part-time producer position at KWWL during her senior year, and now, a full-time role at WCTV Eyewitness News in Tallahassee, Florida. As a digital content producer, Christensen writes for the station’s online platforms, manages social media and supports on-air reporters and anchors.
After graduation, moving to Florida came with its own set of adjustments, including trading tornado warnings for hurricane alerts. But she credits UNI faculty, such as professors Nikki Harken and Eric Braley, for helping ease the transition into the workforce.
“They provided a lot of hands-on, relevant experience and brought in guest speakers which helped me prepare for a full-time job,” she said.
Outside of work, Christensen has embraced the outdoors, spending time hiking, playing pickleball and volunteering at a local animal shelter. She also enjoys living near the beach
and continues to explore different parts of Florida with her partner and dog. When asked about advice for current and incoming UNI students, she encouraged them to slow down and savor the experience.
“While there are definitely moments in college that are stressful and overwhelming, don’t forget to hug your friends, take a walk around campus and just breathe,” she said.
“This is a short time in your life, and so much happens in a small time period.”
To those writing for the Northern Iowan today, Christensen emphasized the importance of student jour-
nalism. “Never stop asking questions and being curious,” she said. “You can truly change people’s lives.”
As she looks to the future, Christensen plans to stay at WCTV, continue growing as a writer and explore more of what Florida has to offer.
“I hope the NI continues to inform and advocate for UNI students,” she added. “It was the best decision I ever made.”
The Northern Iowan was a space I could grow as a writer and as a person.
– CAROLINE CHRISTENSEN UNI Alumni
LILY MUNNIK Staff Writer
COURTESY/WCTV NEWS
After graduating from UNI with degrees in history and political communication as well as minors in digital media leadership and journalism, Christensen moved to Florida where she works as a
COURTESY/CAROLINE CHRISTENSEN
Outside of work, Christensen takes in all that Florida has to offer including hiking, playing pickleball and volunteering at a local animal shelter.
COURTESY/CAROLINE CHRISTENSEN
Christensen encourages current and incoming UNI students to slow down and savor the experience as college is such a short time in your life.
Panther softball sweeps Beacons
NICOLE WATERS Sports Writer
The Panther softball team opened up their weekend against the Valparaiso Beacons, which saw four and a half scoreless innings. With runners on first and second, Addison McElrath ended that by launching a long ball before Valpo scored a run in the top of the sixth inning. Kate Lappe secured a home run on the first pitch of her at-bat to give UNI a 4-1 lead. The Beacons had the bases loaded in the top of the seventh, but the Panthers got out of it and secured the game with a 4-1 victory.
Game two saw a four-run first inning from Northern Iowa that gave them the early lead after a two-run home run by Kylee Sanders. She scored Skylar Benesh, and an RBI from Ella Smithson got Lappe and McElrath in. Valpo scored what would be their lone run in the top of the second. McElrath had a two-RBI double that drove in Benesh and Sanders to give the Panthers a 6-1 lead in the bottom of the fourth, and it would be the ending score of the second game of the weekend. Game three of the week -
COURTESY/UNI ATHLETICS
end
pitching a one-out single that led to back-to-back
walks by McElrath and Drew Henricks to load up the bases. Lappe opened up scoring with a third straight walk, as Katelyn Callahan would go on to score another run with an RBI single to give the Panthers a 2-0 lead. Smithson added a third run to the score for UNI, opening the frame with a fourth walk to score Henricks and take the 3-0 lead.
Northern Iowa’s offense continued in the second as Benesh drew a lead-off walk. A Sanders grounder advanced Benesh to second, as McElrath would drive in Benesh with an RBI single for a 4-0 lead. Lappe followed up by crushing a home run to put the team ahead 6-0. The Panthers would go on to etch another run in the bottom of the fourth as Sanders led off with a walk. Adalyn Reynolds would move to second on a stolen base as Lappe secured a four-pitch walk. With runners on base, Callahan scored her second RBI that fell in the field to score Reynolds for a 7-0 win.
Caitlin Clark returns to Iowa City with a splash
ADAM JOHNSON Sports Writer
On Sunday, May 4, the Indiana Fever played an exhibition game at CarverHawkeye Arena in Iowa City. Despite being an exhibition, the stadium was jam-packed with Iowa fans welcoming back Fever star, and Iowa Hawkeye legend, Caitlin Clark. The Fever played against the Brazil national team, and Clark and the rest of the Fever put on a show for the sold-out crowd. They defeated the Brazil national team in dominating fashion, 108-44.
In proper fashion, Clark scored the first basket of the game from long range, and the Fever came out the gates with an 8-0 run. The Brazil national team responded with a run of their own, and it was 10-9 in favor of the Fever with six minutes left in the first quarter. It was at this point that the Fever really got things going, closing out the rest of the quarter on a 27-8 run. They led at the end of the first, 37-17. The Fever did not let up in the second quarter, as they continued their incredible run. The whole second
ter they were able to
and scored 33 of their own. At halftime, it was a lopsided lead for the Fever, 70-24. By the start of the second half, the Brazil national team was going to need a miracle to get back in the game. They played the Fever a bit tougher, having the closest quarter of the game in the third, but there was no chance for a comeback. It was also in the third quarter when Clark made a shot from behind her iconic NCAA record breaking spot on the floor, sending the entire crowd into a frenzy. After three, the score was 90-35. With the game well in hand in the fourth quarter, the Fever were able to coast to an easy victory. When the final buzzer sounded, it was 108-44.
It was a warm welcome home for Clark, who put up a solid performance in front of her former hometown crowd. She put up 16 points, six rebounds and dished out five assists. Clark and the rest of the Fever will be back in action on May 17, when the WNBA regular season gets underway. They open up the season with a matchup against the Chicago Sky.
saw UNI crack the scoreboard, with Sanders
The Panthers head to Des Moines for the 2025 MVC Tournament, which starts on Thursday.
quar-
shut
down the Brazil offense, while also staying hot on the
