By Julia Gardiner

Visitors to campus searching for the Chemistry and Physics Building will no longer be able to find it.

In a dedication ceremony Monday, the practical name of the academic building was changed to that of Dr. Herman A. Berliner, the University provost who is also senior vice president for Academic Affairs.

“I’m very appreciative of this honor,” Berliner said in his remarks to the crowd of about 40. “It’s nice to be a building.”

Berliner did not donate the funds to name the building, however. Alan Bernon is a former student of Berliner’s and a member of the Board of Trustees. The dedication of Herman A. Berliner Hall came about through a grant from the Carl and Alan J. Bernon Family Charitable Foundation that was offered to the University with that stipulation.

“I think one of the special things about him is really the care that he has for students both as a professor-and I’ve experienced it in the classroom-but also as an administrator,” Bernon said. “I think Hofstra University is very fortunate to have him as part of the administrative team.”

This year marks Berliner’s 39th year at the University, and his 20th as provost. His tenure is marked by his role in establishing the first new schools at the University since 1970, the School for University Studies and the School of Communication. Berliner also took part in forming the Honors College.

In the past, Berliner served as interim dean and dean of the Zarb School of Business, associate provost and associate dean of faculties, acting dean of the School of Education and Allied Human Services, associate dean of University Advisement and assistant provost. Despite the Provost’s range of experience within the University, he may have had the most impact on students when he worked directly with them as a professor of economics on the graduate and undergraduate level.

Of the relatively few students in attendance at the ceremony, not all were as familiar with Berliner or his achievements as Bernon.

Tammy Tran, a junior bio-chemistry major with a pre-med concentration, has had most of her classes in Berliner Hall, but is unfamiliar with its new namesake. “I know he’s the provost for our school and he’s been here for many years,” Tran said. “That’s about it.”

Senior chemistry minor Kathryn Carlson has mixed feelings on the importance of the name change. “As a chem. minor I think it’s pretty important that we actually have a name for our building finally,” Carlson said. She added, “It’s still the ‘chem./phys.’ building. I think the faculty and the programs and the students speak for themselves and the name of the building is just the name of the building.”

Perhaps it’s apathy, a sense of pride in their program, or just preference for the old nickname “chem’ phys,” but it may take some time before chemistry and physics students get used to calling their building Berliner Hall. Tran pointed out the possibility of reluctance to change or simply ignorance of the new name among the student body. “I think 90 percent of the kids are still going to call it ‘chem./phys. building,'” she said.

(Jacqueline Hlavenka)