BAC Dedication & Blessing, September 16, 2006

President MaryAnn Baenninger’s Remarks

Welcome once again to all of you: students, faculty, friends of the college, and lovers of the arts. One of my very first memories of coming to the College of Saint Benedict was the ground breaking for this incredible space.  It took place on the very ground on which you are standing.  I can’t tell you what an extraordinary pleasure this is to share this special day with you.  I also can’t speak of the significance of this occasion without referring to: the facility itself, the work space of the faculty, the college’s gift to the campus and community, and, most importantly, the new potential for students of the arts mastering skills in creating and performing arts.

First, the facility: Curt Green and Dick Hammel of the Hammel, Green and Abrahamson architectural firm designed the original facility which won for them and the college numerous awards for its beauty and its unmistakable statement about the importance of the fine arts in the life of a great liberal arts college.

Marge Green and Bette Hammel have joined us today to explore the BAC’s new addition. You will soon see that the new addition, while harmonious with the original, is as strikingly strong, spacious and beautiful and as genuinely functional as was the remarkable work of Curt Green and Dick Hammel. So, kudos for this architectural victory go once more to the Hammel, Green and Abrahamson firm, this time under the able leadership of Tim Carl and Jamie Milne Rojek.

On your tour today, you will see the new Arlene Helgeson Dance Studio (named by her husband Don who is with us), the new Musical Ensemble Rehearsal Hall, and the new Colman Theater (named by a generous donor for S. Colman who worked in theater during the BAC’s first 25 years).

You will also get a glimpse of the new courtyard (still under construction), a wondrous space which, in the words of the landscape architect, Jean Garbarino, “will marry the original with the new.”

In addition, you will see the Petters Auditorium, the Gorecki Theater, and the Visual Arts Department. Faculty and students in each area are more than eager to point out the wonders of each space. As you walk by the larger spaces, you will notice that many studios, classrooms and technical facilities were also named by generous donors.

Second, the faculty’s work space. As the number of faculty has multiplied by six (from 8 to 48), the faculty have endured more and more overly crowded work places. Faculty have been vying with each other and with visiting artists for the use of the big stage for their rehearsals. That era is over at last. Troupes of professional dancers or actors-in-residence can now be accommodated for weeks at a time to work with students without provoking a single battle for precious territory.

Third, the college’s gift to the campus and civic communities: You are all fans of each season’s offerings of musical and dance concerts, plays, and visual arts shows which have identified the BAC as the premiere presenter of arts in Central Minnesota. Starting today you can begin to imagine an even more exciting future. I confidently predict that our audiences from campus and from the community, both in winter and summer, will now be delighted even more frequently with performances that awaken our imaginations and nourish our souls.

Fourth, and most important of all, the new BAC will facilitate our students’ mastery of theatrical, musical, visual arts, and dance skills. While the new Guthrie is proudly introducing its three new theaters, the College of Saint Benedict is proud to provide the students of Saint Benedict’s and Saint John’s with 4 theaters and a Music Rehearsal Hall (a total of 7 venues for both schools, counting Saint John’s Stephen B. Humphrey Theater and Pellegrene Auditorium). The kind of work required of an actor or musician to succeed in one space will not work for a performance in another. So this rich variety of venues, we predict, will inspire a new burst of creativity. Part of that burst will be among dance students practicing in the Arlene Helgeson Dance Studio. They will be leaping on a dance floor matched only by one in London and another in New York. They are destined for greatness.

I want to conclude my introductory remarks with a heartfelt thank you to all of those who made it possible.

First, I thank our friends and donors, many of whom I have already acknowledged, and whose names you will see on commemorative plaques throughout the building.  And allow me just a small plug. I, after all, am a college president.  There is still time to be part of the future of this award-wining facility—spaces that are yet unnamed (and a few empty bricks to be filled in on the commemorative wall in the lobby, and seats in the Petters and Gorecki auditorium that are just crying to have your names on them)!

We thank Hammel, Green and Abrahamson our fine architectural firm for their extraordinary vision, this time in the persons of Tim Carl and Jamie Milne Rojek.

We thank our wonderful contractors from Donlar Construction, Don Kainz, Owner and CEO, Dan Harlander, Project Manager, and Darrel Ashfelt and Jake Wakemann, Project Superintendents.           

We thank our Mechanical Engineer, Matt Jensen from Hallberg Engineering, our Electrical Engineer, Wally Sharp from Wunderlich Malec, Andy Fritz from Eljay Plumbing and Heating, and John McDowell from McDowell Mechanical

Forgive me, however, for bestowing much of my thanks and pride on the entire Facilities Management Division of the College of Saint Benedict.  Jim Fredricks our Chief of Physical Plant and Facilities Manager, and part of my cabinet—whom we ought to call Saint Jim, Larry Christian, Terry Loso and Mike Juntenen.

I offer too, a very special thank you to the people of our own Fine Arts Staff who were the glue who held it all together: Anna Thompson, Executive Director of Fine Arts Programming, Tom Darnall who made sure that communication between faculty, facilities, management and staff went well, Mary Darnall, our Director of Operations, and Jack Dempsey, our production manager who keeps the whole thing running.

Last but not least, I thank the Fine Arts Faculty and students for their love, dedication, vision, and dreams that have kept this space alive and vibrant for forty years and who will continue to be the heart, soul, and spirit that lie within.

There are so many people who made this happen, it’s clear to me that I have forgotten someone.  Please know that it took each and every person, however big or small their role to make this project a reality.

I invite you, as we now bless and tour the Benedicta Arts Center of the College of Saint Benedict, to think about its renewed significance—as a facility, as a support for faculty work, as a gift to the campus and civic communities, and as a laboratory for student artists.