Nelson A. Rockefeller with Hopkins
The Rockefeller Center extends its heartfelt congratulations to the Hopkins Center on the dedication of its new building.
We share a special connection to this moment—our namesake, Nelson A. Rockefeller, spoke at the original dedication of the Hopkins Center. His words from that day still resonate: "The Hopkins Center will make its great contribution to the cultural life of the student body and of this entire region."
We look forward to seeing how The Hop continues to fill our community with creativity, connection, and new perspectives on the world.
Nelson A. Rockefeller Remarks at the Dedication of the Hopkins Center on Thursday, November 8th, 1962
"This occasion is a unique personal pleasure for me, in a unique variety of ways. First, I speak of the physical entity we are here to dedicate – this magnificent Hopkins Center.
All my life, I have been deeply interested in architecture and building construction. This is a form of human creativity for which I have profound respect – one I have aways found fascinating and exciting.
The fact that one of my close friends, Wallace Harrison, is the architect of Hopkins Center, gives this dedication a very special meaning for me. The fact that my friend, Governor John Volpe created the organization whose skilled workmen and engineers have translated Wally's dreams into the tangible reality before us heightens my enjoyment of this occasion still further.
Thus, in the first instance, I appear here as a very proud chairman of the building committee – proud of my friends and proud of the beauty and utility they have created.
Secondly, I would speak of the purposes to which the Hopkins Center is to be put.
That Dartmouth would invest $7.5 million in a home for the visual and performing arts is not only a sign of the vision of President Dickey and the many individuals associated with this project; it is also a sign of a great public awakening in America to the arts, to the enrichment of human life through the arts.
In the State of New York, I have seen this awakening and have been privileged to advance it through create of a State Council on the arts. This was a pioneering venture, initially looked upon, I am sure, as just one of the Governor's peculiarities. We have through the Council brought ballet, theatre, good music, paintings, and other varieties of the arts to cities throughout the state. The public response has been so tremendous that the whole ideas is no longer looked upon as peculiar at all.
On the contrary, the State Legislature at last year's session approved my request for a $15 million appropriation for a State Ballet Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City as the performing arts center for the World's Fair of 1964-65.
Thus, Hopkins Center is neither esoteric nor remote from American life, but is rather a symbol of Dartmouth's leadership in the mainstream of American life, in enhancing and enriching a growing realization of and yearning for the arts as a part of common human experience.
Third, I would speak of the meaning of Hopkins Center to the students of Dartmouth – its meaning to their future lives.
As President Dickey has so well expressed it, among the objectives which guided the planning of Hopkins Center was, "about all, to create a new type of educational facility which through its combinations of classroom and extracurricular work, cultural activities and fellowship will make the Dartmouth experience in liberal learning more pervasive, more meaningful and more of a lifetime enjoyment.'"
Dartmouth is justifiably proud of its football teams – and as an alumnus, I assure you that I continue to keep track of the Dartmouth scores.
There was, however, something peculiarly felicitous in the descript of Hopkins Center's size which Dartmouth distributed to the press.
I refer to the fact that the Center was described as containing "about four acres of floor space (more than 2.5 football fields)."
Perhaps the football analogy was accidental. I prefer to think it symbolize the Hopkins Center's future contribution to a further rounding-out of the Dartmouth man's experience on this campus.
As Baker Library is the leading college library in the nation and the center of the students' intellectual life, as the Outing Club and the athletic plant contribute to their physical vigor, Hopkins Center will make its great contribution to the cultural life of the student body and of this entire region.
Finally, I would speak of the man whose name is enshrined in this center as it is in our hearts – President Emeritus Ernest Martin Hopkins, father of the Baker Library, and the man around whom the alumni of Dartmouth became the most cohesive and loyal alumni group in the nation.
As an undergraduate during this Presidency, as one who knows well his outstanding work as a member of the Rockefeller Foundation and as chairman of the General Education Board, I count it a rare privilege indeed to have been associated over so many years with this great educator, humanitarian, businessman and public servant.
We here are indeed honored by his presence as we dedicate Hopkins Center in his name to an even greater future four Dartmouth and the generations of young men who will enter the world from its portals."