Charles Sappenfield Papers and Records

Charles M. Sappenfield was appointed as the first Dean of the College of Architecture and Planning, after the Indiana State Legislature selected the university as the only publicly supported school of architecture. Under Dr. Sappenfield’s direction, the college grew from three professors and 50 students in 1966 to 41 professors, 10 staff, and over 500 students upon his resignation as Dean 15 years later. Sappenfield’s leadership also saw the construction of the Architecture Building, which was dedicated in 1972. In 1981, he resigned as Dean of the College of Architecture and Planning, and returned to teaching. In 1991, he was honored for 25 years of service to the University at the Omega Faculty Recognition Banquet. The Charles M. Sappenfield Award of Excellence was established in 2001 to recognize outstanding faculty in the College of Architecture and Planning.

For many years, the collective architects of Indiana felt that the state needed a school of architecture, believing that the absence of such a school revealed a weakness in the state’s system of professional education. On November 20, 1963, twenty-five architects traveled to the State Capitol Building in Indianapolis to petition the Indiana State Legislature Advisory Commission to consider establishing a state supported school of architecture. Their plea was approved and a committee was appointed by Lieutenant Governor Richard O. Ristine. The committee concluded that the state of Indiana needed its own publically supported school of architecture. At the time, there were five interested parties in the running for the new school: Indiana State College, Ball State Teachers College, Purdue University, Indiana University, and the city of Indianapolis. Competition was intense. On June 8, 1964, Muncie Mayor John V. Hampton appointed a local committee to help sway the committee to select Ball State Teachers College as the site for Indiana’s new school of architecture. When the legislative delegates arrived in Muncie on June 30, Ball State was prepared. At the end of the presentation, Chairman Representative M. Maurice Goodnight pronounced, “Muncie was the first city that they had visited where business and industrial leaders also took part in the bid for the school’s location.” After nine months, on June 24, 1964, it was recommended that Ball State Teachers College be the site of the first state funded school of architecture in Indiana. On January 20, 1965, Representatives David Metzer of Muncie, and Elmer MacDonald of Fort Wayne, introduced House Bill #1170 establishing the school of architecture at Ball State Teachers College. Following passage in the House of Representatives and the Senate, Governor Roger Branigin signed the bill on March 11, 1965, to take effect July 1, 1965.

As soon as the announcement was made that the college would be located at Ball State, the search began for the dean for the new college. On July 10, 1965, Ball State announced that the man with “the rare opportunity” to head the fledgling department was Charles Madison Sappenfield, an Asheville, NC, architect and professor at Clemson University. At the age of thirty-five, Sappenfield was the youngest college dean in the United States. He arrived on campus full-time in January, 1966, to begin formulating his plan for the college. At the time the “college” consisted of a desk and a chair in a tiny office in the Administration Building. Dean Sappenfield wasted no time. He took the criteria and developed them into a blueprint for a program, started looking for faculty, and began interviewing prospective students.

Facilities for the new college consisted of three quonset huts previously used by the former U.S. Naval Reserve, located on the corner of McKinley and Neely. The structures were remodeled to meet the initial needs of the college until a proper building could be built. They consisted of four drafting rooms capable of holding two classes of 25, a workshop with equipment, faculty offices, a library, and a student lounge. There were also two upstairs classrooms and a former gym used as a multi-purpose room with a capacity of 400 people. The later was used for exhibitions of student works and hosting the Monday Night Lecture Series.

The initial CAP faculty consisted of Dean Sappenfield and three teaching faculty. The curriculum of the new program required five academic years of study and three ten week sessions working in an architecture office, in related construction or planning offices, or in documented travel. The coursework consisted of a broad range of classes with a strong emphasis on design and the humanities. Architectural courses included design, history, structures, building technology, graphics, construction, environmental systems, seminars and independent research. During the 1968-1969 academic year, the College of Architecture and Planning curriculum expanded to include a formal program in landscape architecture. In the fall of 1966, two years ahead of the original schedule, the first class of 165 students were admitted to the Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning. In 1971 the college produced its first graduates, 16 in total. That same year, the school was fully accredited by the National Architectural School Accrediting Board.