Bloomberg Student Center opening celebration

Remarks as prepared

Thank you, to our Pep band, our Peabody musicians, and our students for kicking us off! And thank you, Scott, for your introduction. And of course, thank you Jay, the Blue Jay, for bringing the Hopkins spirit.

Welcome everyone—our friends and family, our neighbors and advocates, including Congressman Kweisi Mfume.

Our Senior Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations, Fritz Schroeder, knows this: But it has been my long, long-held dream to hear the song that just played—The Talking Heads “This Must Be the Place”—reverberate off the walls of this remarkable place.

And as you just heard from our students there is a magic to this place: from a romance begun as a serendipitous conversation at Mo’s Place above us or in the Living Room right behind you, to a performance applauded in the black box theatre, or a design challenge mastered in our makerspace.

Anything is possible.

Of course, it has taken more than a century for us to arrive here.

In 1884, on our original campus in downtown Baltimore, Hopkins undergraduates were feeling the weight of their academic loads. They wanted a place where they could take a break from their books, a place to relax and unwind, a student center that was strictly for socializing and fun. Sound familiar?

Lucky for them, a generous Baltimorean, Eugene Levering, heard their pleas and donated funds to create a building to be used for their benefit. The students’ hopes soared; they were overjoyed; they made the place their own.

And yet, a mere two years later, Hopkins’ decided it needed more academic space, and the administration commandeered the building.

They even went so far as to remove the student center from its original location by physically loading it onto a truck and carting it away to what they deemed was a better locale.

Classic admin move.

But undaunted, generations of students kept trying to make their dream of a student center come true.

In 1916, not long after Hopkins moved to the Homewood campus, they converted the Merrick Barn—a former horse stable just a few steps from here—into a soda fountain and put on shows in the loft.

Many of you here may recall the dedicated efforts to transform Levering Hall, a former YMCA, into a combination student union, café, and bar. To be fair, the Rathskeller bar apparently hosted a legendary disco night on Thursdays in the mid-1970s.

And not long into my tenure here, students even laid a full brick foundation for a student center outside my office in Garland Hall.

We took the hint.

So this morning, at the dawn of our 150th year, we are here, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our alumni and friends, many of whom are with us today, and to the leadership of the building’s namesake, Mike Bloomberg. This constellation of supporters has together turned our students’ long-harbored dream into a reality.

Now, we can finally say: This is the place.

This is the place that ends forever our students’ nearly 150-year-long campaign for a dedicated social space that was NOT a library.

This is the place that is flexible and open, where no space is owned by any single student group but is used equally by all.

This is the place that will bring together students from all walks of life to perform, create, break bread, and let their imaginations soar, as Talking Heads say, with their “feet on the ground, head in the sky.”

And so, as Johns Hopkins begins its next 150 years, I am delighted to call this place home, a place animated by the people who fill it and by those who have brought this vision to fruition: Bjarke whose light-filled design is the root of its magic, Jorge whose extraordinary art inspires its creative energy, and David whose interior landscape is structured to spark the vibrant exchanges of ideas that lie at the heart of our university … and our JHU colleagues: Rob Hollister and our Hopkins JHFRE team; Rachelle Hernandez, Lee Hawthorne, Brittini Brown, and all of Student Affairs who have welcomed our students to their student center.

And of course, Mike.

Mike, I can think of no better namesake for this place. Without your extraordinary vision, our students would still be advocating for a place like this.

Instead, they are busy negotiating appropriate nicknames for the building.

There are a few top contenders.

Like, “The Stuce.” (If you are wondering, as I was, what that refers to, it’s short for “student center”. Student. Center. Stuce. I still see some blank stares. Moving on.).

There’s also “The Waffle” (Not sure if that one’s inspired by the stirring design of the building or the tempting culinary delights from Connie’s Chicken and Waffles).

And then, there’s my personal favorite: The Mike. This one needs no explanation.

But whatever you call it, this is a home where everyone wants to be, and we could not be more grateful that this is our place.

Thank you.