Slideshow: St. Gladys Hall Progress Update

Although workers concluded construction of the College’s newest building, St. Gladys Hall, before the start of the academic year, landscaping of the building’s southern plaza continued throughout the past semester and is now almost complete. A blue-tiled infinity pool, featuring a sunburst — the symbol of the College’s patron, St. Thomas Aquinas — now overlooks the campus athletic fields. Young trees and shrubs surround the building and dot the plaza, thanks to Norman’s Nursery of Carpinteria, California, which generously donated all the plantings and groundcover.

All that remains for the plaza to be complete is its centerpiece — a statue of the building’s patroness, St. Gladys. A local sculptor is currently working on an original statue, commissioned specifically for the campus, which will be installed in time for a formal dedication ceremony later this year.

Designed to facilitate the small, seminar discussions that are at the heart of the College’s unique academic program, St. Gladys Hall was made possible through a $3.2 million grant from the Fritz B. Burns Foundation of Los Angeles. The building, the thirteenth constructed since the College acquired its campus in the 1970s, was blessed at the start of the 2014-5 academic year. It houses eight classrooms along a new arcade perpendicular to the Chapel. It is named for St. Gladys, the 5th century Welsh queen and mother who is the patron saint of Fritz Burns’ beloved wife, Gladys Carson Burns.