The Ragsdale/Mendenhall Residence Hall, designed by Northrup & O’Brien of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, opened in 1950. The building was named in honor of Gertrude Whittier Mendenhall, Head of Department of Mathematics from 1892 to 1926, and Virginia Ragsdale, a professor in the Department of Mathematics from 1911 to 1928. Ragsdale became the third faculty member to hold a PhD degree.