In 1950, the Mississippi legislature created the smallest of the state’s historically black colleges and universities in an effort to maintain “equal” segregated schools. Opened as Mississippi Vocational College, it became Mississippi Valley State College in 1964, and a university in 1974. With its rounded corners and fin-like piers, the tan brick Carpenter Auditorium (1959) by Hall and Norwood of Greenville, is a late example of Streamline Moderne. The Jacob Aron Student Union (1960, Biggs, Weir and Chandler) brought midcentury modernism to the campus. Its cantilevered concrete entrance canopy was a favorite element of the firm’s principal designer, Tom Biggs. In a modernized classical composition, the five-part building’s tan, salmon, gray, and green brick facade is seen through a screen of concrete columns and beams. Complementing the union, the Walter Sillers Fine Arts Center (1962, Mattingly and Biggers) has variegated brick walls, a masonry screen, and a concrete cantilevered-slab entrance canopy.
The H. M. Ivy Cafeteria (1967, Hall and Norwood) has splayed wings projecting from a central octagon, which is entered through a wide vestibule with a folded-plate roof. Built of concrete, the Brutalist James Herbert White Library (1970–1971, Brumfield and Craig), as remodeled by Duvall Decker in 2013, has the look of puzzle parts assembled and owes its form to the Boston City Hall (1968). At the front of the main quadrangle and set within a rectangular walled precinct, the concrete and brick Lois Aron Chapel (1970; pictured) is a work of geometric purity by the Greenville firm of Virden and Roberson. Passing beneath a planar bell tower, the visitor travels along a corridor, initially outside the precinct, then within it and flanked by a file of rooms wrapped in horizontal concrete bands and ribbon windows. Outside again, the walkway reaches the chapel, on axis with its altar. At the front of the campus, the Harrison Health and Physical Education Building (1972–1973, Virden and Roberson) is a sculptural counterbalancing of brick.