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East Carolina University has renamed two campus buildings in honor of former chancellors.

The school announced Friday, November 6 that the student recreation center is now the Richard R. and JoAnn M. Eakin Student Recreation Center. Gateway Hall is now Steve and Nancy Ballard Hall.

Both buildings are considered examples of their respective time at the school.

Ballard oversaw the school’s move to the American Athletic Conference as well as State Employees Credit Union Partnership East, a $2 million grant to educate teachers in rural communities. Ballard retired as chancellor in 2016, but returned to ECU as a professor in the Honors College.

Eakin played a key role in getting a student recreation center at Bowling Green State University before doing the same at ECU. The $18 million, 150,000 square-foot facility opened in 1997 and today includes an indoor and outdoor pool, a 12,000-square-foot (1115-square-meter) weight and fitness area, a 27-foot (8-meter) climbing wall and six basketball courts.

Ballard was ECU’s sixth chancellor and 10th administrative officer beginning in 2004. Eakin was the school’s fourth chancellor and eighth chief administrative officer, serving from 1987 through 2001. The naming ceremony was held on Thursday.

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