Workers are still putting the finishing touches on Pembroke Hall, but a full Alumnae Hall commemorated its rededication at a ceremony Friday night.
The renovated Pembroke Hall is the new home of the Cogut Center for the Humanities and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.
"I make no apologies for being an alarmist," said keynote speaker Pamela Rosenberg, who said the populace needs a renewed emphasis on studying humanities. Not enough people are learning for the sake of learning, said Rosenberg, general director of the Berlin Philharmonic orchestra and member of the external advisory board for Cogut Center for the Humanities.
Throughout the evening, Rosenberg proclaimed the importance of the study of the humanities, a task being undertaken jointly by the Cogut and Pembroke Centers. "I feel a grave concern that we are living in a society that operates in a vacuum," she said. "There's so little awareness of cultural context."
But Brown defies that trend, she said. "When you're on the (Brown) campus, you can become almost wildly optimistic that what I'm talking about will be widely enacted."
Named after the alma mater of Roger Williams in England, Pembroke Hall was the first building erected for the women's college at Brown. Its first dedication was in November 1897, according to Encyclopedia Brunoniana.
Chancellor Thomas Tisch '76 started the ceremony with a short introduction followed by a video presentation about the building's renovation and the collaboration of the two academic centers which now inhabit it.
The video featured commentary from Michael Steinberg, director of the Cogut Center, and Elizabeth Weed, director of the Pembroke Center, who described the union of the two centers as an "arranged marriage."
The building's exterior was restored to reflect its original design while the interior was completely changed to a more modern style, Weed said.
"We wanted a lot of common public space where the participants in the two centers could come together," she said.
While some rooms in the building still maintain the dark wood that was characteristic of the original Pembroke Hall, the common lounges have all been fitted with glass doors and large windows which allow light to pervade the building's interior.
"The idea was to bring together the Cogut Center and the Pembroke Center because we have very close academic connections and we're both very strong in the humanities," Weed said.
President Ruth Simmons addressed the crowd, who donned formal wear for the dinner event. She beckoned the building's architect, Toshiko Mori, from the crowd to receive the audience's enthusiastic applause.
"You really suffered in this project," Simmons said to Mori. "I have to avow how impossible we were in the project, but you stuck with us."
Simmons also thanked the features and design committee that oversaw the efforts to design and renovate Pembroke Hall, as well as Craig Cogut '75 and Nancy Buc '65 for their contributions to the renovation project.
Coinciding with the reopening of the Pembroke Center, the University recently received a $3 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for doctoral programs in the humanities, Simmons said.
Rosenberg concluded the event in Alumnae Hall with her speech, "The Urgency of Context."
Rosenberg, who studied history at the University of California at Berkeley, said she went to college because there was so much to learn. But she worries that some students no longer have that drive.
"We are a very insular, us-focused, nation," she said.
Though technology allows access to more information, students are not taking advantage of the opportunities to learn more, she said.
Rather, the access to technology is responsible for the gradual wearing away of "personal and collective attention spans."
"I fervently hope that society at large will develop a sense of urgency and a need for the type of searching and learning that takes place at Pembroke Hall," Rosenberg said.
