The construction of the McCormick Road dormitory complexes marked a westward expansion of the University across Emmett Street. Much like residents of the suburbs, students living on McCormick Road traveled from their residences to Central Grounds “downtown” for classes and meetings with faculty members.

Eggers and Higgins, the successor firm of Jefferson Memorial architect John Russell Pope, planned ten dormitories organized in pairs around a central courtyard. President Darden intended the new residences as places for first and second year students to cultivate good study habits and become familiar with the University before moving on to the Lawn or into a fraternity or boarding house.

Eggers and Higgins also designed Mary Munford Hall, the first women’s dormitory at the University. Secluded from the predominately male campus at the northwest corner of grounds, Munford Hall was carefully planned with specific spaces for female students’ studying and socializing needs with significant input by the Dean of Women, Roberta Hollingsworth.

While Munford Hall and each McCormick Road dormitory shared similar appearances and capacities, their interiors could not have been more different. The bare-bones McCormick Road dorms crammed male students into narrow hallways and small bedrooms with little common space. In contrast, Munford Hall offered female students well-furnished rooms for sleeping, meeting, studying, socializing, and attending to domestic duties like ironing, cooking, and sewing—under the supervision of a housemother who lived in an apartment on the ground floor of the dorm.