McCormick also led the university into a new level of national recognition, expansion, and growth, as well as beginning institutional support of athletics.

In the 1920s, new university chancellor John Gabbert Bowman declared that he had a vision for a centerpiece "tall building" for the university. The 14 acre Frick Acres property in Oakland was soon purchased and plans for the campus shifted focus from the hillside to a neo-Gothic Revival plan