University of North Carolina Greensboro Renames Building to Honor a Former Faculty Member

The University of North Carolina Greensboro has announced that it is renaming the building housing the School of Health and Human Sciences as the Mary Channing Coleman Building. In 1921 Coleman was named the first director of the physical education department at what was when known as the North Carolina College for Women. It later became the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina and was known as the “WC.”

Coleman served as the director of the physical education program until her death in 1947. Six years later in 1953, the university named Coleman Gymnasium in her honor. During several expansions of the athletics and physical education complex at the university, the Coleman name was dropped.

Celia Hooper, current dean of the School of Health and Human Sciences, stated that “it is so fitting that we return to the original name as an appreciation for history and to honor someone who made physical education at WC on of the best programs in the country.”