Bishop’s University

Tomlinson Hall Conference Table Reaches its 25th Birthday

The strong community bonds that Bishop’s University has are rooted in attention to detail and collaboration to provide an equitable environment for anyone with a desire to take part in Bishop’s storied history. One such collaboration was on the board room table in Tomlinson Hall. This nearly 200 year old university features buildings that have become synonymous with the Eastern Townships, in part due to the careful craftsmanship of a number of rooms. While many buildings feature designs and furniture that are rich with history, few capture the expert design of the ellipse-shaped board room table in Tomlinson Hall, which features all the hallmarks of a community with an intense desire to proliferate a caring environment.

Carpenters Dave Young and Donnie Mimnaugh are the hands behind the ellipse-shaped table which thrones inside Tomlinson Hall in McGreer Hall. The heart of this project, then-Principal Janyne Hodder, commissioned the 28-seat table to ensure that all who attended the meeting space could see one another and communicate freely as its predecessor, a T-shaped table, caused people seated at the head of the table to lean over in order to see their counterparts during meetings. Dr. Lorne Nelson, the brain behind the design, contributed his expertise, usually set to calculate elliptical orbits of celestial spheres in the physics department, to accurately resolve the measurements of the inner and outer circumferences of the massive table.

Young and Mimnaugh began to work on the Tomlinson Hall table in January 2000. The first draft of the plan involves setting up the chairs in the elliptical shape to demonstrate the viability of Principal Hodder’s vision. For the table’s construction, its size proved limiting to conventional methods of building custom furniture. The typical Buildings and Grounds Workshop was far too small for construction. As a result, Young and Mimnaugh traced the 38’ x 20’ table on white Masonite and Marker at Centennial Theatre before constructing the individual parts from oak trees that had been felled in recent months on campus. From here, the table was fully assembled for the meeting of the Corporation in June 2000 in Tomlinson Hall. A quarter-century later, this handcrafted table still regularly hosts the discussions and debates of the University’s Board of Governors, Academic Senate and Executive team.

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Media Inquiries:
Sonia Patenaude
Communications Manager – Bishop’s University
819-342-2587 | sonia.patenaude@ubishops.ca

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