CHAMPAIGN — Huff Hall celebrated its 100th birthday last fall. On Tuesday, Sept. 29, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign revived the celebration with the dedication of a new time capsule, to be placed in the cornerstone of the building, where it will remain until 2126.
Dean of Applied Health Sciences Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, Director of Athletics Josh Whitman and Athletics Historian Kent Brown spoke at the dedication.
The dean read aloud her hopes for the year 2126, from a letter she wrote to be placed in the box.
“When this capsule is opened, I hope inclusion and accessibility are no longer aspirations, but ordinary features of everyday life,” Hanley-Maxwell said. “I hope disability is fully recognized as part of human diversity, and that health is understood to not simply be the absence of illness, but as the presence of opportunity, connection, movement, dignity and hope.”
Discovering the old time capsule
In 1924, a time capsule had been placed in Huff Hall — but it flew under the radar until preparations for Huff Hall’s centennial began last year, according to Brown.
“I called the [Facilities & Services] department here on campus and I said, ‘Hey, I think we have a time capsule at Huff Gym,’” he said. “And the answer was, ‘Well, we don’t have record of it, no record of a time capsule.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m looking at a page here that says ‘Items to be included in a time capsule at Huff Gym.’”
Brown then discovered that the Main Library had recently opened their time capsule, only to find the artifacts in ruin.
But he also caught wind that McKinley Health Center had opened one of their own, placed around the same time as Huff’s, and found the items in pristine condition.
“So I’m thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we got a 50-50 chance here of everything being in great shape,” Brown said.
When they opened the 1924 Huff Hall capsule in 2025, Brown said the items in it, including photos of University President David Kinley and Illinois football legend Harold “Red” Grange, were in pristine condition.
Passing on the story of Huff Hall
A selection of items from the original capsule will be placed in the new box, while the rest will go to the University Archives.
The new capsule — a metal box about the size of a toaster oven — will include items specific to both Applied House Sciences and the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics, the two facets of Huff Hall that have been interlinked throughout history, according to AHS Dean Hanley-Maxwell.
“Most people don’t know the interweaving between what eventually became AHS and Athletics from the earliest times,” she said. “And in fact, men’s physical education, which later became one of our foundational departments and part of the college — this was their home.”
The Dean’s letter will be joined in the box by letters from Whitman, Chancellor Charles Isbell Lee Jr., and University alum Shahid Khan, the namesake of the Khan Annex.
The annex – the north addition to Huff Hall – was completed in 2011, despite being a part of the original architectural design created 90 years earlier.
A brick from the Khan Annex dedication is also part of the capsule’s contents, along with technology created by AHS, including the i-Phagia Sensor, and a book written by athletics historian Kent Brown.
According to Brown, the capsule will also join a national registry for time capsules, ensuring the record of the time capsule does not get lost to time.
At the dedication, Whitman remarked that Chancellor Isbell often talks about the importance of “being good ancestors.”
“This, to me, is one of those steps where we can pay it forward to future generations to continue to help educate them,” Whitman said. “Hopefully instill in them a sense of pride at what, not only the university is in 2126, but what it is in 2026 and what it was in 1926.”