COLLEGE PARK — Work on Knight Hall is wrapping up and the College is speeding toward a spring semester opening in our new home, but there’s one critical issue that needs to be resolved before we move in.
We need a name for our new cafe.
The College is sponsoring a name-the-cafe contest that is open to all students, alumni, faculty and staff. The winning name will adorn the cafe that will be an integral part of the great hall, the main gathering space in our new building. (See architectural renderings of the building here.)
The business school named its cafe, Rudy’s, for its dean at the time. The computer school and the libraries reflected their disciplines, Bytes and Footnotes, respectively. What can you come up with for journalism’s cafe?
Send your suggestions to cafename@jmail.umd.edu by Friday, Nov. 6. Enter as many times as you like. A committee of students, faculty and alumni will narrow the choices to a few finalists for a vote in November.
Dean Kevin Klose will buy the winner a cup of coffee at the cafe and, if it’s a really good name, he might kick in for a bagel, too.
While you’re thinking about the name, take a minute to get inspired by surfing around our building site and clicking on the construction site update photos for the latest look at the building.
Knight Hall is a $30 million, 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art building that will bring the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and its affiliated professional centers under one roof for the first time. It will be the first “green” building on campus, and is currently on track to get a LEED Gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.
While it will be high-tech our new home will be friendly and open at the same time, filled with glass and meeting spaces like the cafe. It will also have a touch of the building that has been our home for more than 50 years: The “Journalism” letters have already been stripped off the front of our current building and will be mounted in the vestibule of Knight Hall.
Construction is expected to be completed this winter, and the College will be offering classes in our new home on Jan. 25, the start of the spring 2010 semester.
