Ute leader dedicates site for humanities building

In a traditional Ute Tribe ceremony honoring Mother Earth, Ute Tribal Elder Clifford Duncan dedicated the site of the future Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building on Wednesday.

Duncan played music and spoke to the four directions to consecrate the land in a customary ritual-which he said has "changed little" over time-to mark the building's ambition to serve as the physical and spiritual center of the College of Humanities and the university.

Naakaaii Tsosie, age 12, and Naataanii Tsosie, age 10, of the Navajo tribe performed a hoop dance, an intertribal performance in which dancers use up to 56 hoops to make the forms of birds, plants and animals, honoring the two worlds of man and nature.

The Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building will house the departments of history and philosophy, the international, Asian and Latin American studies programs and the Tanner Humanities Center.

Other humanities colleges will remain in their current locations, but as University of Utah President Michael Young said at the dedication, "the building will be the intellectual center of gravity of the humanities" and the physical center of the entire campus.

The 50,000-square-foot building will cost $16.5 million to construct. The money will come from donations, and no taxpayer or student dollars will be used in the construction, said Tim McInnis, assistant dean of development and alumni relations for the college.

Eighty-five percent of that cost has already been raised, including a lead donation from the Tanner Foundation.

"The opportunity of more space for a large college is a big plus," said Kacee Kniazeva, student senator for the College of Humanities.

Many of the departments moving to the building are currently in Carlson Hall, which will be taken over by the expanding law school.

Group study rooms, conference rooms and an indoor/outdoor café will provide space for outside-of-class academic discussions. In addition, the building has been designed "to actually have places to go and think," said Heidi Camp, assistant dean of research and communication for the college.

The exterior of the building has been "very carefully designed," more so than any campus building in recent years, Camp said. "They looked at how it sits on the land, its impact on its neighbors, a consideration of its exterior."

While the building will not undergo the official certification process, it has been designed to meet "green" standards of efficiency and environmental impact. Old trees uprooted in construction will be replaced by similarly aged trees.

The building's scheduled completion date is May 2008.