The new Hagg-Sauer Hall was unveiled during a virtual ceremony Thursday afternoon.
About 150 gathered online for the livestream, in which BSU President Dr. Faith C. Hensrud thanked the people who made the project possible, such as local legislators, the construction and planning team, city and county leaders, as well as officials from Minnesota State.
“This building is a replacement for our old Hagg-Sauer Hall — a building which served thousands of students for nearly 50 years. In that time, more than 700 faculty and staff interacted with many thousands more of our students. The classes taken, lessons learned and relationships built were an indelible part of the experience that so many of our students had with Bemidji State University. Certainly, many memories were made within that building’s walls,” President Hensrud said.
“That history will help generations of future students, staff and faculty create lifelong memories of their own in this new Hagg-Sauer Hall.”
The funding for the new building on campus, the first since the AIRC was constructed in 2001, came from the 2018 bonding bill signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton. The $22.5 million in state funds largely went to the demolition of the old Hagg-Sauer and construction of its replacement, with some funding allocated to renovations in five other buildings on campus.
