What is in a Name? Dean Hall

During her forty-year career at Central, Dorothy Dean taught just about every type of science class. Originally hired in 1928 to teach food chemistry, she soon was called to teach women’s health and physical education due to staffing shortages during the Great Depression.

As the country came out of the Depression, and Central’s financial situation improved, she primarily taught chemistry, with occasional forays into biological sciences (physiology and anatomy).

In addition to her teaching duties, Dean served on a number of campus committees, including, the Student-Faculty Welfare board, the Faculty Council (predecessor to the Faculty Senate), and Promotions and Tenure board.

She also was active in professional organizations, serving as president of the Washington Education Association, a member of the American Association of University Professors, a member of the American Chemical Society.

“Of special interest to me was working with others toward the development of the pre-professional program,” she noted in “The First Seventy-Five Years: A History of Central Washington State College,” published in 1967. “After laying the ground work for this phase of the curriculum I became an advisor for the pre-medical and pre-dental students. Many of these former students are now successful chemists, doctors, and dentists.”

Dean retired in 1968, the same year the university erected the original Dean Hall, named in her honor. Four stories tall, brick and concrete Dean Hall housed the university’s science programs and was envisioned to be the start of a campus science neighborhood, a cluster of buildings housing all of the science-related programs (that dream will finally be realized in 2021, with completion of the new Health Sciences Building).

In 2008, Dean was remodeled and modernized, becoming the university’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building. In addition to removing asbestos and cleaning heavy metals contamination at the site, the $31.5 million upgrade brought new, energy-efficient lighting, water-conserving plumbing, and other green features.

Today, Dean Hall is home to the Department of Anthropology and Museum Studies, including the Museum of Culture and Environment, the Departments of Geography and Biology, and the offices of the dean of the College of the Sciences.

Immediately west of Dean is the Greenhouse, built in 1992, which houses dozens of plant species. The greenhouse, which has a resident giant tortoise, consists of four separate rooms with different plant environments.

Following Dorothy Dean’s retirement, she relocated to the Lacey, Washington area, where she lived until her death in 1987 at the age of 86.