Maroon, Gold halls’ names are temporary

Greg Burghardt

Students will have their choice of three new halls to live in next year — Kesseler, Maroon and Gold — in addition to the 17 existing residence halls.

CMU named Kesseler Hall, the only permanent name of an addition to the Towers the university now has approved, after Board of Trustees member Roger L. Kesseler, retired vice president and controller for The Dow Chemical, Co., and his wife Phyllis.

Gold and Maroon are temporary names until the university finds donors, said Mike Leto, vice president of Development and Alumni Relations.

“Nobody knows when it will happen,” Leto said about the naming of the halls. “These things take time.”

Although student opinion varied on the names, Darell Armentrout, who will become residence hall director of Gold Hall, has accepted them.

“I’m pretty indifferent to the names because a building truly comes from the people who live there,” said Armentrout, residence hall director of Woldt Hall.

Armentrout, who has been an residence hall director at CMU for five years, applied for the new residence halls because he said Residence Life wanted people with leadership experience in the new buildings.

“You can prepare for a lot of things, but with any new building there will be unforeseen events,” he said. “I know I can handle it.”

Maroon Hall will house a technology support center and fitness center, while Gold Hall, which faces the Student Activity Center, will house business classrooms. Kesseler Hall will feature a student success center and convenience store. All three halls will share the Towers computer lab and the Carey Dining Commons.

The hall facing West Campus Drive is Maroon, and the hall facing Pearce Hall is Kesseler.

Armentrout said people with apprehension about the building’s names should take a tour of the halls, which are given every Friday.

“It’s always fun to see the excitement on people’s faces as they take a building tour, and I think once people see the new halls they will forget about the names,” he said.

The university named the 17 other residence halls after former university presidents, professors and trustees through a system that has been in place since the late 1980s, said Cal Seelye, Residence Life assistant director.

The system relies on people donating to CMU, he said.