St. Norbert College: Names new hall after Dudley Birder

From: Mike Counter,
St. Norbert College,

www.snc.edu, 920-403-3089,

mike.counter@snc.edu

EDITOR’S NOTE: A photo of Birder is available upon request. Contact Mike Counter at mike.counter@snc.edu.

St. Norbert College: Names new hall after Dudley Birder

DE PERE, WIS: For years, Dudley Birder has shared his time and talents with northeast Wisconsin. Now the “Music Man,” as he’s affectionately known, will have his name attached to a special building.

St. Norbert College president Thomas Kunkel announced last Friday that St. Boniface Church, located on the corner of Grant and Fourth Streets in De Pere, will be renovated and named Dudley Birder Hall.

“This is a wonderful tribute to Dudley Birder and all he has meant to St. Norbert College and, really, the entire community,” said Kunkel. “For more than half a century he has taught and influenced countless students and touched the lives of everyone in this region who loves music and musical theater. And since so much of his work has been devoted to sacred music, we think it is especially apt that the newest incarnation of this grand old church will be called Dudley Birder Hall.”

The $1.7 million project, supported by donors, will convert the church into performance space, especially for music. It will hold about 200 seats and will be used for recitals, chamber concerts and public lectures. It will also be used for Dudley Birder Chorale rehearsals. Much of the work will involve installing professionally designed, custom-made acoustical materials for state-of-the-art sound quality. The project is expected to start in July, with a projected finish date in December.

Dudley Birder joined the St. Norbert College music faculty in 1958, and over the past five decades he has developed and led musical initiatives that have brought together the campus and local communities. You can find more history on Dudley Birder at http://www.snc.edu/birderchorale/choraleHistory.html.

For more information on Dudley Birder Hall, contact Mike Counter, director of media relations at St. Norbert College. He can be reached at 920-403-3089 or mike.counter@snc.edu.

St. Boniface Church History

In 1995, a recommendation was made to form one parish and consolidate St. Boniface and St. Joseph under a new name. In 1996, Bishop Robert Banks announced that the new parish would be known as Our Lady of Lourdes, and ground was broken for a new church in 1998. In 1999, St. Norbert College purchased the former St. Boniface Church and remodeled it to include a new bookstore, coffee shop and Discoveries International store, a project recognized the next year as “Best Adaptive Reuse of an Existing Building” by the Wisconsin Main Street program. The bookstore and Discoveries International later relocated to the college’s Todd Wehr Hall, and the coffee shop to its new Mulva Library.

St. Norbert College History

The only Norbertine college in the world, St. Norbert is a four-year, Catholic liberal arts college, devoted to the Norbertine traditions of community, prayer and service to others. Founded in 1898 by Abbot Bernard Pennings as a school to prepare men for the priesthood, St. Norbert College became coeducational in 1952. Today the residential campus serves approximately 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students hailing from throughout the United States and more than 30 countries, and offers study abroad opportunities in 37 countries. St. Norbert College is located on the banks of the Fox River in the residential community of De Pere, Wisconsin, neighboring Green Bay – a metropolitan area of more than 200,000, rich in culture, business and opportunity. The academic excellence of the college is nationally recognized by U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges. www.snc.edu