The Buildings of Central Michigan University
Rachel Tate Residence Hall
Opened September 1956
Demolished 1997
Cost: $1.14 million
Capacity: 300
The Rachel Tate residence hall saw the last change in room layout until the
building of the Towers complex in the late 1960s. The building copied the innovative
suite plan designed for Robinson Hall, but added a second bedroom to the plan.
This plan was used on the next eleven residence halls at Central Michigan University.
It was designed, like most CMU buildings, by Roger Allen of Grand Rapids.
The building was opened in Septemeber of 1956, but was not dedicated until January 19, 1958. Although its 75 suites were designed to house 300 students, the first year of operation saw 325 women rooming there. It was located next to the Carlin Alumni House, on the present-day location of parking lot 8.
Its location next to the Carlin Alumni House, which was the university president's
residence at the time, led to many dinner invitations to the president and his
wife as apologies for excess noise. In 1958, the entire Homecoming court lived
from Tate Hall. 
The building housed women from 1956 to 1972, and became coed
until it was demolished, along with Barnard, in 1997. They had been closed due
to low enrollment, structural problems, and general inefficiency. The decision
to raze them was based on the high cost of remodeling.
The building was named for Rachel Tate, who was an instructor in the Department of English and a part-time women's dean from 1897 to 1916. She was born October 12, 1848 in Berrien County, Michigan. She attended Niles High School, then earned her degree from Eastern Michigan in 1889. She did graduate work at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
Before coming to Central, she taught grade school in Chicago, was commissioner of schools in Berrien County, and taught at Benton Harbor College and St. Mary's College in Illinois. She died on March 16, 1916. In her memory, the Rachel Tate Literary Society was formed in 1924, while fraternities and sororities were banned at Central. In 1940, the "literary society" was reorganized as Sigma Phi Delta sorority, then as Alpha Sigma Alpha in 1941.