The Many Faces of Weter Hall
An Appreciation
Weter Hall is a variety of things. A place to study, a place to eat, a place to do last second revisions on a paper for your writing class, the list goes on. Every student at Seattle Pacific University has a different relationship with the building. Some come there every day while others don’t pass through its doors until their sophomore year of college. I have only entered the building a few times this year, but it has always proven to be a great place to learn and to hang out.
One of the best things about Weter is its location. It is close to all the residence halls and is a stone’s throw from Gwinn Commons, the dining hall at SPU. It is a great place to meet friends and work on homework. The looks however, don’t hold the highest spot on a list of the best attributes of Weter. Its exterior is garish and square, with bland colors and unique angles. A strange mural sits above one of the doors. The scene doesn’t get that much better once inside. The walls are cream colored and the carpets puke brown. Ikea looking tables are spread intermittently around the room, surrounded by equally bland chairs. White support columns hold up the ceiling in random spots around the room. “Half walls” create a partial hallway on the edges that house the doors that lead to meeting rooms for clubs and classes.
The fireplace redeems the room a little. A dark brown hearth edges the warm relaxing flames of the fire. Comfy brown chairs form a semicircle around the fireplace, and a large flat screen TV rests on the wall above. A Starbucks Coffee also shares the room with the study area. It is a noticeably more modern area of the room, as it was added on more recently. Meals to Go can be found here for the needs of a hungry student. The shop gives the room a constant faint coffee smell can be soothing while studying. That is what Weter is, a great place to hang out and study. Despite it’s questionable looks, Weter has something to offer. Whether you’re looking for a place to casually hang out with a cute girl or you want to crack out an essay in two hours, Weter is the place to be. Personally, I do not utilize it nearly enough. I was in it the other day with a friend from class and he said he had never been in the building before. The next day I saw him there studying. The space can grow on you quickly. Weter has not always been this kind of place, however. It used to be a place of learning in quite different way. When it first opened its doors in 1963, it was known as Weter Memorial library.
It was too serve as a memorial for James P. Weter. The dedication plaque for the library read “Weter Memorial Library, Erected in Memory of James Parsons Weter, Whose Life Exemplified the Ideals of Seattle Pacific College, 1963.” Weter was not actually a part of SPU though. He was a wealthy Seattle lawyer. His daughter, Winifred, was a longtime Professor of Classical language. While it may not have been the reason a library was built in her name, it is easy to see connections. A library is a place of language, which is what Winifred Weter taught. In her obituary in the Seattle Times it says
In 1933 she earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago — a rare feat for women of her generation — and then joined the faculty of Seattle Pacific University, where she taught Greek and Latin for 40 years.
She was a pioneer for women in academics and a great professor and her father’s gift ensured her legacy in the school.
When James Weter died, the family donated $200,000 to the school to help pay for the building. It had a student capacity of 400 and enough room for 100,000 books. The structure was built in a way so that books could be placed anywhere and the building would still be structurally sound. A variety of other technical ideas were implemented, such as making the colors to reduce glare and contrast. The mural on the exterior of Weter actually depicts the development of writing. When I originally began my research, I thought it was for simply aesthetic pleasure, but that is not the case. The panel shows Indian carving totems, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek and Roman letters. This represents Weter’s original purpose, to be a place of ideas communicated through language. Some changes have been implemented to Weter over the course of time as well. The aesthetic vertical metal bars that surrounded the building originally were removed. According to SPU archivist Adrienne Meier, this was an attempt to make Weter not look like classic mid-20th-century architecture. If the wrong people deem that it does, Weter could become a protected historical site. That would make it so that the school cannot do any work on Weter. Also according to Meier, the school has plans in store for the building and that would kill any hope of a renovation or replacement.
When Weter first opened, a writer for the student paper wrote the headline “Library Offers More Than Books.” (McNichols 130) This was due to the number of common rooms, lounges, etc. that the library held. Even back then it was a great place to meet and work. Having a library was a huge step in the right direction for SPU in becoming a more reputable academic institution. Many people in the city saw this as a great thing for the school. Many wealthy politicians and businessmen donated money to the cause. According to “Seattle Pacific University: A Growing Vision” by Donald McNichols,
[the] Co-Chairmen of the campaign were Michael Dederer, President of the Seattle Fur Exchange, and Matthew W. Hill, Washington State Supreme Court Justice; the Chairman was Harold S. Shefelman … a long time member of the law firm of Weter, Roberts, and Shefelman [who] held many distinguished appointments.
This helped gather even more excitement for the project. Class of 1961 even donated money to help fund the construction
The construction of Weter draws a lot of parallels with writings on generosity. One of the most obvious is to Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth.” It is about the rich’s moral obligation to be philanthropic and how Carnegie tried to exemplify that in his life. One of Carnegie’s most prolific philanthropic ventures was the donation of libraries. Carnegie helped fund a large quantity of libraries across the USA. He wanted them a certain way to properly communicate what he wanted. These properties included stairs going up to the entrance to indicate an ascension into a place of learning, etc. It is easy to criticize him in this regard. He gave vast amounts of money to build libraries when some of this money could have been going to the poor and hungry. The same could be said about Weter. Why give money to construct a library for well-off college students at a university when you could be spending to ensure that at-risk students make it to college in the first place? The money could be used in better places. The defense of this stance is that this is the nature of philanthropy, however. It can’t always help everyone. There just simply isn’t enough money and time in the world to go around. The Weter family saw a chance to help youth that they considered important in their lives and they took that chance. They helped fund this place of learning and study. As a student who can utilize it, I am surely grateful for the gift. I use the building in my everyday life and am grateful to the Weter family for their gift.
Weter Memorial Hall is a place of friendship, of study, of coffee. For every student at SPU it serves a different purpose, even if that a very small purpose, just like it has served many purposes for SPU over the years . Whatever the school may have in store in the coming years, it will always give many, including me, fond memories. It’s where I ate my first meal at college, where I wrote my first paper in under two hours, the vessel for my first all nighter studying. All he buildings at SPU bring different things to the table, and Weter is no exception.
Work Cited
Brooks, Diane. “A Classy Woman Who Loved the Classics.” The Seattle Times: Obituaries: A Classy Woman Who Loved the Classics. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2016.
McNichols, Donald. Seattle Pacific University: A Growing Vision, 1891–1991. Seattle, WA: U, 1989.Print.
Seattle Pacific College, “Weter Memorial Library Pamphlet” (1963). Seattle Pacific College Publications. Book 2. http://digitalcommons.spu.edu/archives_publications_spc/2
