For nearly 60 years, Walker Center has housed generations of OU students. Bright-eyed and eager, students moved into the 12-story building, fostering friendship and creating core memories at OU.
But after six decades of operations, Walker Center is scheduled for demolition this winter to make way for new, updated first-year housing.
The Walker experience begins the same for most: on move-in day. Elijah Mecke, a resident during the 2021-22 school year, remembers his first impression of the dorm.
“It didn't look super flashy, like some of the newer places, like Cross, that had literally just opened up that year for people to live in,” Mecke said. “It looked like more of the dorm experience that I feel like most people think of when they think of college."
Mecke said he struggled to bond with people growing up because he moved around frequently as a child, but he found his community in the people who lived on his floor at Walker, which shaped his first-year experience.
“Everybody on our floor was super cool. It really just got me excited to come back from class to be able to be with those people,” Mecke said. “It made it even better going to class and seeing some of those people there.”
Walker Center was constructed in 1966 under the name “Couch North.” In 1970, the OU Board of Regents changed the tower's name to honor banker Edward A. Walker.
By the time Mecke was a resident, Walker had been in service for over 50 years, and he said its age was showing.
“The building itself was just old. There was black mold, the AC would go out sometimes, we would have to evacuate all the time, …” Mecke said. “The elevators would break down.”
Mecke said though the building wasn’t in the best condition, residents made the most out of it.
“Everybody always had a smile on their face when they were in there. It literally looked like people were having the time of their lives, …” Mecke said. “It was more of a privilege to stay in other areas than it was Walker.”
Mecke compared his experience at Walker to what other students experienced at newer dorms on campus.
“You had Cross across the street that literally just opened up. That was perfect and brand new, spacious, very secluded, …” Mecke said. “If I stayed in Cross, you’re kind of secluded to who your roommates are, and Walker, you’re forced to see these people.”
Cross Village, located at the previous site of Cross Center, opened in 2018 as an on-campus living option for upperclassmen students. In 2021, OU bought the complex from Provident Oklahoma Education Resources, Inc., and transitioned the complex into first-year housing.
Mecke said he would live in Walker again 100 times over.
“I couldn't even tell you some of the nights that we actually had in Walker, …” Mecke said. “I wouldn't trade that year, specifically, for any other year, and I would stay in Walker 100 times over again, even with all of the negatives that came with it.”
Mecke said he feels conflicted about the demolition of Walker, but is thankful for the memories he made.
“When we got there, they were shifting towards having a nicer campus. They’re in the (Southeastern Conference) now, so that was just going to get expedited in itself,” Mecke said. “Tearing it down is definitely tearing a piece of OU away, and it's unfortunate because I would recommend any and every single person that is staying in Walker to stick with it.”
Tim Hoover, a resident from 1987-88, remembers Walker being the nicer dorm compared to others on campus.
“When I was there, it was the nicer dorm, and the dumpy ones were both Cate (Center) and Cross (Center), …” Hoover said. “Ours were considered the best, except for what the athletes had, which were really posh.”
Hoover recalls the dorms being furnished with wood furniture, bunk beds with uncomfortable mattresses and industrial linoleum tiles.
“Honestly, it was fair, as dormitories go. It was fairly clean and considerably more modern than the other dormitories,” Hoover said.
Many of Walker’s floors are now coed, but Hoover remembers a time when that would have been frowned upon and recalls living on an all-boys floor.
“The idea of having girls and guys on the same floor, I think, would have been a little risque for the late 80s,” Hoover said. “It was a good group of guys.”
In a time before the internet, Hoover said the TV room was the place to be.
“If there was something everybody wanted to watch, like a ball game, everybody on the floor would go down and watch it,” Hoover said.
Being on an all-boys floor, Hoover recalls the time the hallway was turned into a slip and slide.
“When I came back that night, the whole hallway was just soaked with water,” Hoover said. ”There were guys just running down the hallway doing the slip and slide.”
Hoover said residents from other floors heard the commotion and joined in.
“Some people were doing this all night. People from other floors were coming up and down and doing it,” Hoover said. “It just turned into this huge thing, and I’m pretty sure there must have been water dripping down to other floors.”
Hoover said the next day, the people on the floor were terrified they would be expelled, but according to him, the dorm’s administration had a “sense of humor” and let the boys off.
Hoover said living in Walker taught him the importance of meeting all types of people.
“I learned that it's a good thing to meet people from all kinds of walks of life, so maybe they’re not the same race, but also maybe they’re not the same religion, but also maybe they're not the same socioeconomic class, …” Hoover said. “You have to learn to socialize with them.”
Deena Reherman, a Walker resident during the 1985-1986 school year, said her experience at Walker changed the way she thought about people.
Reherman originally moved into Walker with her high school best friend, but later transferred to Oklahoma State University. The following semester, an African American student moved into the dorm. Reherman said they were stunned to be living with each other.
“Being from the small town that I was from, that was pretty rare, but I was very open-minded. I was excited because I was being open to other cultures, and she was so cool,” Reherman said.
The relationships students make during their time at Walker can last long after graduation. Donna Neel, a resident during the 1974-75 school year, said she grew close to a group of about 10 girls.
Neel recalls the students keeping dorm room doors open for visitors to go in and out to talk or hang out.
Since graduation, Neel and her friends kept in contact, and to celebrate their 50-year anniversary of living in Walker, they returned to Walker.
“We had so much fun that weekend,” Neel said. “We were just giddy like college kids again.”
When they came back for their 50th anniversary, Neel and her friends met a group of girls who took them up to their dorm to show them around.
“That was cool. We just stayed up there for about 10 minutes, and then we left,” Neel said.
Tim Moore, a resident of Walker during the 1984-85 school year, remembers Walker as one of the first steps in his adult life.
“The whole OU experience is kind of transitioning from your childhood to your adult life,” Moore said. “Walker is your first stop in that transition; it's your first experience away from your parents.”
Moore said he hates to see Walker come down, but the demolition is for the best.
“It’s got a place in my heart, hate to see it come down, but it's also pretty old, …” Moore said. “Being in the SEC, it's good changes, it's gonna draw a lot of kids.”
Isandro Moreno, a film and media studies major and a Walker resident, said it’s cool to be one of the last students to live in Walker, although he will miss the facade of the two towers while he completes the rest of his degree.
“I might miss the outside of it, while I'm still here, just because having the two towers kind of has a pretty significant part of the whole view there when you’re going down Asp,” Moreno said.
During the school year, Moreno got a visit from one of the students who lived in his dorm room a year before him, and it showed him how past students connected with Walker Center.
“It seems like definitely a lot of people have kind of an emotional connection to the place,” Moreno said. “I like it too. It’s nice, it's very homey.”
Moreno isn't alone in this sentiment. A white wall that reads “WALKER FOREVER” now stands in the Walker mail room, covered with hundreds of signatures and messages left by residents.
The "Walker Forever" wall in the lobby of Walker Center.
Pre-demolition work is scheduled to take place at Walker over the summer, according to a statement from the university. The actual demolition will take place over winter break.
This story was edited by Macey Thaxton and Natalie Armour. Tori Pham and Gretchen Schultz copy edited this story.
