Beam Signing Marks Important Stage on Sedgwick Project

Sedgwick Hall will not reopen for approximately another year.

But a very important piece of the renovated building was prepared on Wednesday, with a bit of a personal touch. The final structural beam for the project was made available for members of the Rockhurst University community — students, faculty, staff and construction crew — to sign their names.

By doing so, they’ll be part of the building’s already-long lineage and its bright future as the future home of Saint Luke’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Mary Mooney Burns, vice president of advancement, acknowledged the renovation itself, and with it this opportunity to make such a mark on history, was only possible because of the donors who together raised the $23 million to make it a reality.

“All $23 million of those dollars were donated by alumni and friends of the University who believe in the RU mission and in you,” she told the crowd of faculty, staff, students and others. “For that reason, we are inviting you to personalize a beam that will be permanently part of this school.”

University President the Rev. Thomas B. Curran, S.J., before inviting Saint Luke’s student Jenny Warner to be the ceremonial first signature on the beam, called to mind why we mark such occasions. From the Scandinavian tradition of tying greens and ferns to timber structures as an offering for the gods of nature to the more recent “topping off” ceremonies of iron workers hanging flags or Christmas trees from beams, these traditions in part reflect a desire to honor the natural environment in which we exist, even as we build new structures in them. It is fitting, then, to echo that tradition for Sedgwick Hall, a building that implements a wide variety of green building techniques and features.

“Another way of expressing right relationship with nature is a commitment to sustainability,” Fr. Curran said. “Living in harmony with the Creator, with one another and with the created goods of the Earth.”