Mason’s Mortarboard

President Merten recently said that this upcoming year “will be Mason’s most dynamic ever due to unprecedented campus expansion and completed construction projects. Each new facility provides an opportunity to celebrate and tell the Mason Story.”

Those stories will be told during a number of grand opening celebrations over the next three months. Fittingly, one of the most anticipated structures on campus–the Rappahannock River Parking Deck–will have the honor of being the first to celebrate it’s opening, August 13. President Merten will likely be behind the wheel of the first auto to enter the deck as he ceremoniously drives through a ribbon.

The next will be the opening of “the RAC” (Recreational Athletic Complex) on September 2. This one ought to get a lot of attendance, especially from the many students who will have just arrived back to school. Once the ribbon is cut and people enter the building, everyone will be able to participate in a large number of events such as an obstacle course, gladiator joust, dunk tank, rock wall, mechanical bull… you get the idea.

The Engineering Building will hold its ceremony on October 2, at the beginning of Alumni Weekend. President Merten, Dean Griffiths and Dr. Volgenau will address the crowd, and hopefully we’ll be able to schedule Doc Nix and Co. to liven things up.

The School of Art will hold their grand opening on October 23. I know they already have a keynote speaker lined up for the program, afterwhich everyone will be able to walk through the new building and see student and faculty artwork (food and beverages will be placed throughout the building, of course).

One other building that will be completed but has yet to finalize a grand opening date is the Police and Public Safety Building (just north of the new parking deck). I dont know when the event will be held, but I do know that I’m pushing for the VIPs to use the Jaws of Life to cut the ribbon instead of plain ol’ scissors.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 am and is filed under Construction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.