The building originally housed a library, classrooms, laboratories, and offices for the departments of English, classics, history, political and social sciences, philosophy, religion, and art.

[1] Sometime after 1871 (the year Peabody Hall was built) there was a report submitted looking for financial assistance for various buildings on Western College's campus.

On April 7, 1972, Alumnae Hall reopened with the library quarters repurposed as a student community center.

[5] However, Professor Richard McCommons gave a presentation to President Phillip Shriver, and was able to get a temporary reprieve on the building so he could conduct a study to investigate the architecture and determine if it was worth saving based on structural and economical liabilities.

[2] Ultimately after this last postponement, Miami's Board of Trustees instructed the administration to arrange for Alumnae Hall's demolition.

Every year the outline of the building is dug up by alumnae and current students, and they plant flowers so in the spring they will bloom in the shape of the former hall.

[7][citation needed] Olivia Meily Brice was an alumna of the Western College for Women, class of 1866.

During her time as a trustee, she donated first $5,000 toward a fund of $50,000 being raised for a new library and laboratory building, which became Alumnae Hall.

The window's central figure is a young woman standing beside an altar with a lightened and uplifted torch in her hand.

She was meant to symbolize the new type of inspired and independent womanhood as well as to illustrate the motto of the class of 1866 suggesting that success is achieved at the prices of hard work, “Per Aspera, Ad Astra.” The motto was inscribed at the bottom of the window along with “The Eleven…1866” – standing for the eleven members of the Seminary's eleventh class.

She sent workmen from New York to remove the window from its place in Alumnae Hall and to crate and ship it to Chicago, where it was displayed and awarded a gold medal for “beauty of its design, inspiration of theme, and exaltation of womanhood.” [12] After the Exposition, the window was returned to Alumnae Hall, where it stayed until 1933 when it was once again taken to Chicago, this time for the World's Fair.

On its return, it was damaged in transit, and stored in the basement of Kumler Chapel until 1974, when the crates were moved to Patterson Place.

[14] The tower is 53 feet tall, and houses the 11-bell Heath Chime, as well as three additional bells that were added in 1978 and cast in the Netherlands by the I.T.