Swen Parson Hall

First occupied December 1952, this building originally housed the Swen Franklin Parson Library. Illinois Limestone makes up the exterior of the building, while oak and birch woods with wheat finish form the interior wood trim. The building is named for Swen Franklin Parson who served as one of the original faculty members of Northern and the first professor and Department Head of Mathematics. Professor Parson remained involved with Northern for more than thirty-five years, and students and faculty held him in high esteem for his qualities of fairness, slow judgement of others, and detached philosophical point-of-view. His friends remarked that he held the perfect qualities for a judge, and appropriately the building that once housed the NIU Library, converted to the NIU College of Law in 1982. The lobby of the main entrance off of the Bill of Rights Plaza was dedicated on April 4, 1994 as the Thurgood Marshall Gallery. As an outstanding attorney and judge of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Marshall valiantly championed the cause of civil rights for all citizens.