Bess Furman Armstrong Hall is officially open.
Students began moving into the 41,000-square-foot residence hall earlier this month, ushering in a new era for sorority housing on campus.
Located just east of the Nebraskan Student Union, Armstrong Hall features dedicated housing pods, chapter rooms, lounges and study areas for each Panhellenic sorority – Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Phi, Alpha Xi Delta and Gamma Phi Beta – along with an outdoor patio and green space. There are flexible housing units designed to meet the chapters’ future needs, as well.
It also includes chapter rooms and a shared lounge for UNK’s multicultural chapters – the Sigma Lambda Gamma and Lambda Theta Nu sororities and Sigma Lambda Beta fraternity – giving them a permanent on-campus home for the first time.
The 140-bed residence hall is part of a $32.65 million project that replaces University Residence North (URN) and University Residence South (URS). Located directly south of the sorority building, Martin Hall reopened in January 2023 following a major renovation that transformed the nearly 70-year-old residence hall into a modern living space for UNK fraternity members.
The new sorority housing is named after Bess Furman Armstrong, a Nebraska State Normal School at Kearney graduate who served as the first woman editor of The Antelope student newspaper. Furman Armstrong worked for the Associated Press and The New York Times, covering the White House during five presidential administrations, and she was the first woman to hold a top public affairs position with a cabinet agency. The Danbury native was inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame in 1975, six years after her death.
A dedication ceremony and open house are scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Feb. 1 at Armstrong Hall.
PHOTOS BY ERIKA PRITCHARD, UNK COMMUNICATIONS
