Dedicated in 1968, this 12-story, 95,949-square-foot faculty office building and the plaza that surrounds it are named for Hugh Lawson McClung and his wife, Ella Gibbons McClung. Judge McClung, the fourth generation of his family to serve on the UT Board of Trustees (1897–1920) was a great-grandson of James White, Knoxville’s founder. An 1877 UT graduate, McClung was appointed in 1908 as a special justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court and was also the Knox County chancellor of the chancery court. For a number of years, Judge McClung was president of the Knoxville Female Academy.
Judge McClung’s daughter, Ellen McClung Berry, gave UT a gift of property in downtown Knoxville valued at $300,000 during the construction of the facility, and it was named for Judge and Mrs. McClung at her request. Mrs. Berry chose the sculpture and fountain on the plaza.
The building and its design were announced in 1965 as the first and largest unit of a complex of humanities and social sciences buildings covering two city blocks. The complex was to consist of two twelve-story office buildings and three four-story classroom buildings. Architects for the building were Painter, Weeks and McCarty.