Faculty and administration celebrated the opening of the new building Elm Hall in front of the Pace quad on Tuesday afternoon.

During the ceremony, Residence Hall Association President Kevin Copabianco spoke about the how the convergence of the Pleasantville and Briarcliff campus and the opening of Elm Hall brings a ‘breath of new life’ to Pace University.

“This is a major accomplishment and milestone for the university. When students talk about the merger of the two campuses, construction comes to mind. But what we also talk about is the freshness and new atmosphere you can feel on campus now. It’s about breathing new life into this campus and I for one, can feel the new energy and enthusiasm while walking around campus,” Copabianco said.

Copabianco expressed how he felt campus change from his freshman year last year to now all thanks to the new residence halls.

“It is awesome to see whether it be day or night, seeing people hanging out in the new quad or all the amazing lounges we now have here. From last year to this year I’ve noticed a significant change in how this campus operate. The difference between construction and separation to peacefulness and togetherness is amazing,” Copabianco said.

Pace University Board of Trustees Chairman Marc Besca emphasized trust as the key component to this campus executing the first stage of the university’s master plan.

“As chairman of the board I always remember the word trust as the most important word and part of my title. Lots of you really look to us as the board to be trusting, in terms of suggestions, ideas, and supporting [President Friedman] and the team, and its ideas like this that really benefit the university,” Besca said.“We are very fortunate to trust all you fine people out there who are doing marvelous work for Pace and all the things that are happening here it’s a true testament to success and everything that’s happening in our university.”

Moving into his final year in 2017, Pace President Steven Friedman says has seen the campus change dramatically as well. He spoke about alumni student, Sasha Scott, who spent most of her time at Pace from 2010-2014 away from Pleasantville campus because of the distance between her residence hall in Briarcliff and the rest of university in Pleasantville.

“When [Scott] was a student here she lived in Briarcliff and said she would come to class and go back to Briarcliff, go to her room, go to the dining room, go back to her room and hardly ever came here for student events,” Friedman said.

Friedman told the people in attendance how Scott now works in student affairs for Pace University and that she can see the change in the campus and how residents on campus no longer have to deal with not being able to have events on campus accessible to them.

“She sees students out and around this campus all the time. There is larger critical mass of students creates a college spirit that simply didn’t exist years ago,” Friedman said.

Dean of Students Lisa Bardill Moscaritolo reflected on the campus’ past and explained the benefits that came from seeing the campus transform into what she believes is the beautiful vibrant university that it is today.

“We got to see this university transform as each one of these projects was completed. I still remember the day in January right before school was starting, when I tweeted that the walkway from Martin Hall, the campus quad and Kessel was open. I think that was the most tweets Ive ever received back,” Moscaritolo said.“But nothing was more spectacular than having the last construction fence come down and being able to walk in the middle of campus for the first time and taking in the Pace quad. It was breathtaking. All these changes have exceeded my expectations.”

Westchester County Deputy Executive Kevin J. Plunkett deemed Pace University the ‘Harvard’ of Westchester stating that the beautiful campus will only attract more and more students to attend such a “wonderful school.”

“What we have in Westchester County, is the educational foundation to create student and to create leaders of the future; and Pace University is at the forefront of that success,” Plunkett said.” With Elm Hall, with the other buildings that have been constructed, we hear about the Harvard quad, but now we have the Pace quad because Pace is becoming the Harvard of Westchester County and were very proud of that.”

Following the ribbon cutting visitors were given tours of the new buildings by Resident Assistants and complementary food was served. The opening of Elm Hall marks the completion of phase one of the university’s master plan.