The University of St. Thomas today renamed Selby Hall, a residence for undergraduate students on the St. Paul campus, as Flynn Hall in honor of Archbishop Harry Flynn.
Flynn, who has served as chair of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees since 1995, was told about the honor this morning at the board’s spring meeting, after which a ceremony was held in Flynn Hall to bless it and to toast the archbishop.
St. Thomas opened the 418-bed hall in September 2005 and at the time informally named it Selby Hall because of its location on Selby Avenue.
The university has a practice of awarding naming rights to buildings when a gift of at least half of the construction cost is given or pledged. Recently, more than a dozen of Flynn’s friends and admirers came together to commit more than $14 million to St. Thomas to secure the building’s naming rights for him. Opus built Selby Hall for $28 million. The donations, since the hall already is built and financed, will be directed to fulfill priorities of the university’s $500 million Opening Doors capital campaign. Its top priority is student financial aid.
“We gather today out of respect for Archbishop Flynn,” Father Dennis Dease, president of St. Thomas, said at the renaming ceremony. “Your extraordinary leadership ability, sense of purpose, sense of humor and gracious manner have helped direct our Board of Trustees in its actions.”
Dease pulled a cover from the words “Flynn Hall” over the main entrance and presented the archbishop with a painting of the building.
Flynn called the honor “a great, great surprise” and told the crowd that he hopes the students who live there today and in the future will “come to understand one thing . . . that God looks at each one of us individually and loves each one of us individually.” He urged students, in turn, to reach out to others and to share that love with them.
St. Thomas trustees or former trustees and their wives who made gifts were Richard and Maureen Schulze, Gerald and Henrietta Rauenhorst, Michael and Kathy Dougherty, James and Mary Gearen, Pierson (Sandy) and Florence Grieve, David and Barbara Koch, Harry McNeely Jr., and John and Susan Morrison. In addition, Richard Zeuschlag and friends of Flynn from the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, also made gifts. Plaques honoring the donors will be placed throughout Flynn Hall.
The naming is in keeping with a 115-year-old tradition of naming buildings at St. Thomas and the St. Paul Seminary after the bishops and archbishops who have led the Catholic Church in this region since 1837. There are 13 buildings named after 11 bishops and archbishops (see separate story).
Flynn is a New York native and former bishop of Lafayette who moved to Minnesota in 1994 to serve as coadjutor archbishop under Archbishop John Roach. Flynn became archbishop the following year and retired as ordinary of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis last May. He maintains an office and a residence on the St. Thomas campus.