:: History Site Index
:: Historical Overview
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:: USF Site & Name
:: John Allen Legacy
:: 40 Years of Memories
:: Named Buildings & Sites
:: Medical School History
:: Medicine's 1st 25 years
:: Marshall Center History
:: Early Women's Athletics
:: Student Trends
:: Snow at USF!

:: 1st Student
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:: Traditions Overview
:: Alma Mater
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:: Rocky the Bull
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:: Homecoming
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:: "Go Bulls" Hand Symbol
:: Retired Athletic Jerseys

Phyllis Marshall slept here - 40 Years of Memories

In 1960, when the first co-eds moved into the fourth floor of the University Center, USF's first makeshift dorms, Phyllis Marshall was there. Marshall, the perennially beloved, former director of the UC, fostered decades of students through their university experience.

"The UC was originally intended to be a hotel. My bedroom was over there," she says, pointing to the bar in Francesco's Restaurant, the 1996 fourth floor occupant of the building which bears her name. "Forty-seven people lived up here. The building had classrooms, offices and two cafeterias. There was very little room for student activities."

Marshall recalls the early days of conservative students and conservative values, when girls wearing shorts "had to wear a trenchcoat if they wanted to go to breakfast." In those early days, there were no sororities and fraternities. President John Allen was against it. "The funny thing was they called the housing Alpha, Gamma and Delta," says Marshall, pointing out the irony. Instead, students organized themselves into social clubs. They played intramural sports, set up hospitality committees, produced yearbooks, gave campus tours and organized bridge clubs and bowling leagues. And they danced. "They had dances outside every Friday and Saturday. I attended every one." She has fond memories of her young charges. "Some of them gave me a hell of a time. I told them they'd always come back to their roots." Marshall, hired "sight unseen" from a small girls school in Virginia, spent the next 34 years working with USF students. "They have been my clients, my loves." The students returned the affection.

In 1987, a busload of students travelled to Tallahassee to petition the state to name the university center, which was to be added on to in 1989, after her. "Debbie Lum (the Phyllis P. Marshall Center's marketing director) made sure my whole name was used," she says, proudly. "I wanted young women to know it was a woman that the building was named for."

Marshall is retired, but still works with USF students, attending committee meetings, volunteering her time. As she walks through the crowded Marshall Center lobby, a young cheerleader holding a bouquet of balloons calls out to her "Hey, Phyllis" and waves. A legend in her own time.

(1996)

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