President hosts community events at residence

President Lee Pelton has wasted no time in throwing open the doors of the College’s new official residence to host a variety of community receptions and gatherings.

In the weeks following the opening of the fall semester, nearly 200 first-year students attended one of three receptions hosted by the president at the residence, which is on the corner of Spruce and Chestnut streets on Beacon Hill, just a short walk across Boston Common to the main campus.

Those receptions will be followed with an open house for the president’s Beacon Hill neighbors, a welcome for newly hired professors, an evening with the Student Government Association, a Board of Trustee reception, and a dinner with the deans and chairs of Emerson’s seven academic departments.

The residence will provide living quarters for generations of Emerson presidents and their families close to campus and will help strengthen the College’s academic mission by creating a place in which presidents will interact informally with students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, overseers, donors, business and civic leaders, and others.

“Having a place where future Emerson presidents can meet with students, faculty, and supporters of the College is critically important,” said Chair of the Emerson Board of Trustees Jeffrey Greenhawt ’68. “Today’s college presidents work 24/7, and the board wanted to enable our future leaders to have a place close to campus where they can live as they strive to achieve their goals on behalf of the College.”

Emerson purchased the building for $4.925 million in late June. The lower floors of the 7,300-sq.-ft. property will be devoted to College functions, while the upper floors will serve as the president’s private living quarters.