1986 Campus community celebrates the completion of Brown Chapel

After months of dodging the myriad of dump trucks which have prowled around the campus, and after long hours of sitting on backless bench seats in the gym, the PLNC campus community finally began use of the new chapel-sanctuary this fall. Design changes and construction delays on the complicated $5 million structure pushed Trepte Construction, Inc. of San Diego well past the original November 1985 completion deadline. The new facility, financed half by the college and half by San Diego First Church of the Nazarene, now will serve as a church on Sunday and a college chapel during the week.

Students filed into the 1800-seat auditorium for chapel for the first time on Sept. 23. Since 1973, when the college moved to San Diego, the thrice-weekly services have been held in Golden Gymnasium. Leaving the gym means more, however, than no longer having to push a piano and an organ onto the basketball court. College concerts and other fine arts presentations can also be presented on the rotating stage of the new auditorium, without fear of conflict with sporting events.

Good acoustics and a decor which suggests "quietness and good taste" were some of the assets of the auditorium enumerated by Val Christiansen, associate dean for academic affairs. Christiansen, who served as chairman of the development committee and representative for the owners--the church and PLNC, said that the auditorium was designed with both practicality and versatility in mind.

"We started out with the intention that everybody should have a comfortable seat, see well, hear well, and not too been far from the rostrum," he said, and he asserts that his goal, often difficult in so large a structure, was attained.

"It was been a worthwhile project," he said. "Some people believe, and I happen to agree, that it will be a long time before we realize its full value."

From The Clarion October 1986


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