HU TO DEDICATE TWO NEW DORMS
Dorm namesakes to speak at Founder's Day ceremony

Hampton, VA - A dedication ceremony for Hampton University's two new dorms, White Hall and Holmes Hall, will be held on Jan. 27 at 1 p.m. in front of the buildings. The dedication will follow the annual Founder's Day ceremony that will be held at 11:30 a.m. in Ogden Hall on campus.

Founder's Day activities also will include the commemorative wreath placing ceremony at the gravesite of the University's founder, Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, in the Hampton University Cemetery at 9:30 a.m.

At the Founder's Day ceremony, the 2002 Presidential Citizenship award will be presented to the Rev. Ivan T. Harris, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Denbigh; the Honorable Mary T. Christian and Gloucester native Edwin Joseph, former CEO of the Greater Atlantic Company. The guest speakers at the ceremony will be Drs. Gladys Hope Franklin White and Wendell P. Holmes Jr. after whom the dorms are named.

White, a member of the Hampton University Class of 1939 and Emeritus Class leader, has provided exemplary leadership and self-sacrificing devotion to her " HU Home By The Sea." Through her dedicated work with the members of the Emeritus Class, she has raised more than $3.1 million for Hampton University. White Hall, with 48,059 square feet and a capacity for 177 women, is a three and one-half-story structure.

Holmes, a member of the class of 1943, served as a member of the Hampton University Board of Trustees for 22 years, including serving as the chairman for nine - the longest reign of any chairman. He has played a major role in positioning Hampton as one of the best moderate-size institutions of higher education in this country. Holmes Hall, with two and one-half stories, has 30,535-square-feet and will hold 112 male students.

The rooms in both dorms include the latest technological advancements, including Internet hookups and cable television wiring. Both dorms have a bathroom for every four students and a laundry facility on each floor. There will also be apartments for dorm directors and graduate assistants.

The Livas Group has designed several buildings throughout the Hampton University campus, including the William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library and the Convocation Center. Armada/Hoffler, a Chesapeake, Va.-based construction company that also has built Hampton University's Convocation Center and renovated the University Museum and Armstrong Stadium, constructed the dorms. The residence halls were also constructed in the signature "Harvey brick," which is used in the Convocation Center, Harvey Library, Olin Engineering Building and in the new Student Center.

For additional information, please contact: Yuri R. Rodgers at (757) 727-5253 or via email: yuri.milligan@hamptonu.edu