Students have a new place to study—or toss a Frisbee, or sunbathe, or sleep. During the summer, the five houses in front of Husman Hall were torn down and a 1.2-acre campus green was built in their place. The green includes an outdoor stage, a sculpture, and a lot of trees and wide, grassy lawns.

The sculpture is a 10-foot high working scale that students can balance using metal stones engraved with ethics-related words.

The green also includes two memorials to people who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One memorial is for Helen Crossin-Kittle, a 1989 graduate who was a senior computer analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald and pregnant with her first child at the time.

Her friends and classmates chipped in to purchase the memorial.

“The significance is totally emotional for me, that she’s going to be remembered forever,” says Kristin Kucia-Stauder, who coordinated the effort. She and Crossin-Kittle traveled to Spain together for a six-week study abroad trip. “She was just a wonderful, giving, kind person, just a crack-up kind of person who touched the lives of many people.”

The plaque is being placed at the base of a new sunburst maple tree near the entrance to the Gallagher Student Center. Another plaque, this one from the student government association, is being installed nearby in memory of all victims of Sept. 11.