On Aug. 2, many NEIU students returned to campus for the first day of the Fall semester to find that the Classroom Building no longer existed. In its place stood the same structure, however, it was no longer named the “Classroom Building,” but “Lech Walesa Hall”. This has prompted many students to say “Lek Wa-who?”
Lech Walesa (pronounced Lek Wuh-les-uh) is a former president of Poland, and the man who the former Classroom Building is now named after. He is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and was also instrumental in the fall of communism in Poland.
Naming the former Classroom Building after former President Walesa is an idea that was thought up some time ago, but did not go through until the spring. Working together, the institutional advancement team, facilities management and international programs were able to get Walesa to agree to the building being named after him, as well as to attend an accompanying dedication ceremony.
The date that former President Walesa came to Northeastern has been seen by some as inconvenient, and some have even gone so far as to say that it is suspicious. According to Carla Knorowski, Vice President for Institutional Advancement, however, it had nothing to do with hiding anything, and everything to do with convenience for Walesa.
“When you’re dealing with a world leader, you work around his schedule”. said Knorowski. “We tried to get him on campus when all the students were here, and in fact we put forward a date where he could be here when classes were in session because that was the earliest we could do this. It all came about extremely fast, and we put several dates before him and the phone call came two weeks before May 29 and said, ‘I can come this date.'”
The suddenness of his arrival is the reason that many students did not know about the ceremony or the building being named in Walesa’s honor.
“It would have been great to have it in the middle of the semester where we could have all these students,” said Knorowski, “but it just wasn’t something that was possible.”
While the date was inconvenient for students, due to classes no longer being in session, it was in fact monumental for President Walesa. May 29 is the anniversary of the fall of communism in Poland, and rather than celebrating it in Poland, he celebrated at Northeastern.
Many students have expressed their opinions that having President Walesa come to the campus and have a building named after him is insignificant due to his lack of a connection to the school, or even the United States in general. Others, however, feel as though it is a monumental event in Northeastern’s history and might serve as a boost to NEIU’s reputation.
“I think it reaffirms what many people have known about Northeastern all along, and that is that Northeastern is present on the world stage,” said Knorowski, “We really are an international university, and I think the significance of him coming to our university only reinforces that international nature.”
Walesa has stated that his relationship with Northeastern is not limited by his previous visit, and would like to arrange more in the future, and possibly speak with students in Lech Walesa Hall.