Campus Center "a completed vision"

Ribbon cutting begins Grand Opening celebration

The Campus Center was officially opened with the ribbon cutting Friday morning, 518 days after the groundbreaking ceremony began the construction process. Many people, including WPI administration, staff, students, and alumni gathered in the Odeum at 10:45 a.m. to dedicate the building.

In her speech at the groundbreaking ceremony on October 29, 1999, Janet Richardson, the dean of student life and the associate vice president of student affairs, called the groundbreaking a "momentous day in the history of WPI." At the dedication and ribbon cutting she said, "On March 30, 2001 the WPI Campus Center Planning Committee delivers to you, the WPI Community, the completed vision: WPI's first Campus Center."

President Parrish spoke briefly about the project, saying that WPI is finally at the point where we can see the benefits of the actions taken to build the Campus Center. One goal of the Campus Center was "to heighten student group interaction," he said, "this week, we have begun to use the building an have seen the flow of people through it; it has made the campus feel like a livelier, more active place."

Dean of Student Life and Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Janet Richardson spoke after Parrish. "You have given the building the highest praise," she said to the WPI community, "that is, using it as if it had always been here." She talked about the history of the idea of building a campus center, first mentioned in the 1908 WPI yearbook, and mentioned in the late 1960's by the faculty committee that drafted the WPI Plan.

Richardson also listed several people who helped make the Campus Center a reality. They included Vice President for Student Affairs Bernie Brown, Judy Nitsch and Jim Heald, both members of the Board of Trustees, Professors Samson and Fitzpatrick, and Michael Donahue, who wrote a letter to the student body in 1989, calling for them to push for a campus center.

After a video showing time-lapse photography of the construction process, Ernie Dimicco, former president of SGA, and Frank Weber, who represented the Graduate Student Organization, spoke. Dimicco said to students, "we spoke and the administration and trustees listened." He also said that the Campus Center project allowed the WPI community to focus its energies and long-term efforts into getting the center built. Dimicco said, "WPI will become much less a school and much more a home."

Finally, Parrish announced, "There is one thing between us and lunch. We have to cut the ribbon." Immediately after that Janet Richardson cut the ribbon to officially open the Campus Center. Following the ceremony, free food was offered throughout the building. Additional "attractions" including a caricaturist, snow globes, a balloon clown, Victorian portraits, and spin art Frisbees.