OLIVER-BARNARD HALL
Building ID: 1027 | Abbreviation: BR
801 Capstone Drive
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401
Oliver-Barnard Hall is home to the director of the Blount Undergraduate Initiative. It includes offices on the second floor for professors currently teaching in the Blount program, a computer lab for students, three classrooms, and a study area/activities room. The building, built in 1889 and originally called Barnard Hall, was designed as a laboratory and gymnasium. It was named after Frederick A. P. Barnard, professor and scientist who would later go on to become the president of Columbia University. The two-story section held the astronomy classroom and the engineering departments. When B.B. Comer Hall was completed, the engineering department moved out and the Law School Library took its place before eventually moving to Morgan Hall in 1911. Barnard Hall remained as the university's gymnasium until the construction of Little Hall in 1915. In 2000, the structure was rededicated as Oliver-Barnard Hall, the first of two Blount Undergraduate Initiative Academic Houses, in honor of Jasper businessman and University of Alabama trustee emeritus John T. Oliver Jr.