College celebrates Christ Chapel groundbreaking

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College celebrates Christ Chapel groundbreaking
Christ Chapel benefactors Jo and Jack Babbit, College President Larry Arnn, Board of Trustees President WIlliam Brodbeck, and Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé break ground in honor of the beginning of construction of the chapel Thursday in Phillips Auditorium. Breana Noble | Collegian

Snowy and windy weather did not stop Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn from shoving a spade into dirt for the groundbreaking of Christ Chapel on April 6.

Arnn, the chapel’s original benefactors, and members from the college Board of Trustees turned over soil from a makeshift ground, as faculty, students, and other donors congregated in Phillips Auditorium immediately following spring Convocation to celebrate the beginning of the two-year construction of the $28.6 million chapel.

Between songs of hallelujahs from the chamber choir, Arnn said today, the education debate treats students as “factors of production” but that schools need to train them as what they are: “immortal souls created in the image of God.”

“Something is lost,” Arnn said. “It has to be recovered.This chapel will be the single most visible act of restoration and recovery that we will commit in a physical sense. It is a statement about something higher from which we take our dignity. Today, that is so often called bigotry, but it is not. It is love.”

Although the construction on Christ Chapel has begun, the college is still working to raise $4.6 million for construction and fees, $4.5 million to endow scholarships and a faculty position for a sacred music program, and $1.75 million for the operating endowment. Hillsdale has already raised $24 million in cash and pledges, as well as an additional $3 million for the chapel’s two organs.

Arnn said since he arrived at Hillsdale, his master plan for campus has included a chapel. With moldy classrooms and dated architecture, the college, however, needed to focus its resources toward other projects, Arnn said. He said he was waiting for someone who would bring the chapel to the forefront.

That was Jack and Jo Babbit. On a visit to Hillsdale in 2013, the couple asked if the college had a space in which students could worship. After seeing the small chapel in the Knorr Student Center, they offered to help build a new one, donating $12.5 million.

“They took us to a room that reminded me more of a wine cellar than a chapel,” Jack Babbit said. “You could maybe fit 20 people in it.”

Christ Chapel will be 27,000 square feet and hold up to 1,350 people. In addition to serving as a sacred space, the building will offer room for the college to hold Convocation, music performances, and large lectures.

“God’s been working his blessing to allow us to have the thoughts, but, most of all, we see how everyone has responded to add their talents, their money, their time,” Jo Babbit said. “We’ve all come together for the glory of God.”

Duncan Stroik, the architect of the project, said he was grateful to have designed Christ Chapel, which was inspired by colonial American churches, St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and Oxford University. He said the greatest challenge was designing a space that could fit nearly all of the students and still feel comfortable holding a few hundred.

“There’s really nothing better than doing a college chapel, because we know people are going to use it and they’re going to use it well,” Stroik said. “It’ll be used for centuries, and they’re going to come back and appreciate this wonderful chapel, Christ Chapel, your chapel.”

Students who attended the groundbreaking said the ceremony made them more excited about the chapel.

“It was interesting hearing the architect and what it meant to Dr. Arnn,” freshman Nate Gipe said. “I approve of all the work and money they’re putting into it.”

Freshman Jenna Wiita agreed: “I saw that their hearts are in the right place.”

Freshman Samuel Musser said he is grateful for the Babbits and the work the college is putting into the chapel.

“I appreciate it’s for the glory of God and Jesus,” Musser said. “We see the construction, and sometimes it’s hard to have faith in what you can’t see.”

But, freshman Helen Potter said: “We’ll be grateful, when it is done.”