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A rapid increase in student enrollment following the end of World War II made President Doak Campbell aware of the need for additional facilities on the main campus. The Board of Control adopted his long-range plan for new construction -- the "Fifty-Year Plan" -- and assured the public that physical development would be a top priority.

The first building completed, an eleven-story dormitory for men, was the tallest building between Jacksonville and Pensacola. It was named Smith Hall for math professor Elmer Riggs Smith. In 1959, a second eleven-story dormitory for men was built and named for longtime college Business Manager J.G. Kellum.

The decade of the 1950s witnessed non-stop construction on campus. The Student Center was completed in 1952 providing a gathering place for students in addition to the Longmire building; eight fraternity chapters built houses. An annex was added to the college library, later named Dodd Hall in honor of William George Dodd, first Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and head of the English Department. Across Woodward Avenue, the campus expanded to include a ROTC building and a Geology building named for Senator Wilson Carraway. The new Demonstration School, now known as Florida High School, was completed in 1954.

An important construction project during this time was the replacement of the auditorium wing of the Westcott Building. Because it sat on Fuller's Earth, a clay formation that expands and contracts with the addition or lack of rainfall, the building had an unfortunate tendency to sink. In 1954, contractors removed the portion of the building that housed the old auditorium and added a new auditorium, named for FSU benefactress Ruby Diamond. In 1956, the Home Economics Building, now named for former Dean of the School of Home Economics Margaret R. Sandels, was completed. Soon after, Tully Gymnasium named for former student-athlete Robert Henry Tully, opened its doors. Completion of this facility allowed all men's sports to be housed under one roof for the first time.

With expansion booming, it was difficult and expensive to maintain the Collegiate-Gothic style architecture used for the older buildings on campus. Cawthon Hall, named for popular dormitory housemother and initiator of student government at FSCW Sarah Landrum ("Tissie") Cawthon, was completed in 1948. This massive building was the last to display the decorative style until the expansion of the Oglesby University Union in 1985.

Source:

• Wills, Martee & Morris, Joan Perry. Seminole History: A Pictorial History Of Florida State University, Jacksonville: South Star Publishing Company, 1987.