Crowd celebrates Barker Center dedication

"Fantastic," "lovely," "beautiful," and "thrilling" were the kinds of words frequently overheard amid the crowd that packed the Robert and Elizabeth Barker Center for a dedication ceremony on Sept. 12.

More than 700 people gathered to sip champagne, listen to live jazz, and admire the new center for the humanities, which includes fully renovated Warren House and Burr Hall, and the completely transformed Harvard Union. They wandered through the historic buildings, eyeing everything from the new student lockers to the exposed wooden beams in a top-floor seminar room.

Among the speakers was Jeremy R. Knowles, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), who praised the Center for drawing together 12 previously "scattered, fragmented, and ill-housed" humanities programs.

Knowles thanked many of those who turned a vision into a reality: former FAS Director of Planning Philip Parsons; the Faculty Planning Committee; architects Goody, Clancy & Associates; project manager Elizabeth Randall; construction manager Michelle Murphy (with Shawmut Design and Construction); and donors Robert R. Barker '36 and the late Elizabeth S. Barker Other major contributors included Walter C. Klein, whose name adorns the east wing of the new center.

-- Cassie Ferguson