OUR HISTORIC SPACE

The Honors College is located on the second floor of historic H.M.S. Richards Hall, one of the older structures on campus that encompasses significant and sometimes hidden heritage.

Who was H.M.S. Richards?

The building is named after Washington Missionary College alumnus H.M.S. Richards, one of the most important and effective evangelists of the 20th century. Richards recognized the power of radio to transmit his program, The Voice of Prophecy , to millions of people. His innovative spirit and desire to serve others through the mission of radio evangelism is a model of servant leadership appropriate for the Honors College and the Fordham Department of Religion, which are both housed in Richards Hall.

But the building has an even earlier history. Built in 1938, it was originally Sligo Elementary School. In the mid-1950s, the elementary school was moved up Carroll Avenue to a new mid-century modern building next to Takoma Academy, where it still is today, renamed Takoma Preparatory School. Today, Richards Hall still has some signs of being a former elementary school, including the smaller-scale stalls in the original restrooms (if you took courses in Richards Hall and remember the stalls being fairly small, that’s why!).

Another hidden treasure in plain sight

Visitors to the Honors College space immediately notice the walls of books. Far from being a random collection, it is the Presidential Library of B.G. Wilkinson, former president of Columbia Union College, now WAU. President Wilkinson gave his library to the college in 1969. Part of the library also includes a second collection of rare and unusual books that were purchased from a collector and given to the college to enrich its holdings. A longterm project is to assess the collection, preserve the books and use it to teach students about conservation, cataloging and digital humanities. In the meantime, they give the Honors College space its unique academic character.

In the late 1990s, when Roy Branson worked with the college administration to renovate part of the second floor to house the Center for Law and Public Policy, the renovators were surprised to find beautiful paneled wood folding doors encased in walls when the building was first converted from Sligo Elementary School to a college building. Just recently, a second set of doors, also encased behind walls and perfectly preserved, was discovered by Dr. Jonathan Scriven and Prof. Bradford Haas during the renovation of another office space. This second set of original paneled doors will now be a feature wall in the office of Prof. Nicholas Miller as he directs the Honors College Law program.