Princeton University has named one of its halls after esteemed writer and author, Toni Morrison, according to an announcement posted on the university’s website.
Morrison is the first African-American to be awarded the prize.
“This is a very, very special, beautiful occasion for me,” Morrison said during her keynote address.
The hall was formerly referred to as West College and houses the Office of the Dean of the College. Morrison was a member of Princeton’s Class of 1992.
“How fitting that the first building named through this process will now honor a teacher, an artist and a scholar who not only has graced our campus with the highest imaginable levels of achievement and distinction, but who has herself spoken eloquently about the significance of names on the Princeton campus,” Eisgruber said, referring to an address Morrison delivered in 1996 at Princeton’s 250th convocation, titled “The Place of the Idea; the Idea of the Place,” Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber said. “Today Princeton revises itself — revises its plaques of stone and its maps both paper and electronic — so that Toni Morrison’s name becomes part of the lexicon through which students, faculty, staff and alumni navigate this campus, and thereby part of the evolving tapestry through which our community defines itself.”
In 2006, Morrison transferred to emeritus. She came to teach literature and creative writing at Princeton in 1989, and played a critical role in the expansion of the university’s commitments to African-American studies.
“By honoring Toni Morrison in this way, we recognize the indelible impact she has had on this University,” Eisgruber said.
