After the latest meeting with the Board of Trustees and President Fox, the St. Lawrence University Housing Task-force (SLUHT) has decided to tear down Dean Eaton Hall and erect a new dorm in its place.
SLUHT’s decision to tear down the building is unsurprising to anyone familiar with Mr. Kirk Douglas’s (class of ’39) new centennial donation, which he gave on December 9, 2017, exactly one year after his hundredth birthday.
In a statement from his residence in Los Angeles, Douglas wrote, “I’d like for the Laurentians in this building to feel as welcomed as I was during my college years. It’s a time for scholars to come together in reverie, [their dorms] should reflect that.”
Sonya Weinberg-Gerber, St. Lawrence alumna and head of the task-force, said in an interview earlier this week with The Hill News that she intends to make this goal a reality. “Many of the utilities in Dean-Eaton are outdated and unusable … Mr. Douglas has kindly let us keep the name ‘Dean Eaton,’ but, other than that, the building will be completely revamped.”
In a statement made from President Fox’s office on March 19, the same architecture firm assigned to the present-day Kirk Douglas dorm will be rehired for the complete renovation of Dean Eaton, the project has been playfully named the “Dean-Doug Dig-Up.”
However, students who enjoy the current dorm need not fear. While the firm did not respond for comment, a privately-circled statement from a top member of the SLUHT says that plans were already underway to combine the old with the new. For instance, stronger architecture and more logical hallways will be components of the new dorm.
But, just like the Kirk Douglas dorm’s Spartacus, Dean Eaton Hall 2.0 will also hold a café by the name of a famous Douglas movie. The SLUHT memo says The Great Sinner and Lust for Life are the finalists for the name, noting that “we really want to draw on the history of the old Dean Eaton when designing the new.”