Women's Board also allocated $55,000 for an endowment fund for scholarships, lectureships and a small student loan fund. In 1902 the Southern Methodist General Conference agreed to the plan presented by Belle Harris Bennett to establish the deaconess movement and the Scarritt Bible and Training School blossomed under the new standards for professionalizing women lay leaders. In 1918 Dr. Edwin F. Cook, formerly Foreign Secretary for the Board of Missions, was elected president of the School with the task of finding a way to enlarge the school and expand its offerings. He resigned after one year to become a secretary of the Board of Education, and his replacement was Methodist minister Jesse Lee Cuninggim. By 1924, under President Cuninggim's leadership, the college was moved to Nashville, Tennessee and rechartered under the name of Scarritt College for Christian Workers. Architect Henry C. Hibbs, who had designed the campus buildings of the George Peabody College for Teachers, designed the campus buildings in the late Gothic Revival architectural style. Construction of the Belle Bennett Memorial, which included Scarritt Hall, Bennett Hall, Wightman Chapel and the Tower, as well as the Susie Gray Dining Hall began in 1925. Built with Crab Orchard stone, it was completed in 1928. The Wightman Chapel was named in honor of Maria Davies Wightman, a women's rights activist in Louisiana and the wife of Bishop William May Wightman. Sartain Lanier, the chairman of Oxford Industries, married his wife in Wightman Chapel in 1934. By the 1930s, the college "offered a bachelor's degree and graduate education in the fields of community and family service, social work, and religious education." From 1940 into the 1960s, the campus was expanded with the construction of six additional buildings. During the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in Wightman Chapel. In 1973, J. Richard Palmer, formerly of Berea College, was brought in as president to increase fundraising and enrollment. However, he resigned in 1977 due to internal politics. The college became known as the Scarritt Graduate School from 1981 to 1988. During that time, it was a graduate school for Church Music and Christian Education. The school closed in 1988. Architectural significance Several of the campus buildings have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since August 26, 1982. The historic district is made up of the original campus buildings built before 1940: Administration Building, Memorial Tower, Susie Gray Dining