University chapel fills a void

A University of Tampa chapel planned for decades and made possible by local philanthropists is scheduled to open next year at the heart of the private school's downtown campus.

The $19.5 million project features a large hall vaulting 65 feet high and a plaza with a lighted fountain enhanced with 60 musical bells.

The Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values is named for the university's longtime benefactors, John and Susan Sykes. John Sykes is chairman emeritus of Sykes Enterprises, a Tampa-based information and technology services corporation. Neither the benefactors nor the university have disclosed the precise amount of the Sykes' multimillion-dollar donation.

"This would not have happened without private support," a significant portion of which came from the Sykeses, said Dan Gura, vice president for development and university relations. "I've known John and Susan since the '90s, and I think they have always felt that the spiritual part of a person is a critical part," Gura said.

"We want to educate the whole student; besides class and real-life experience, we want to continue to ensure there's always a spiritual component," Gura said.

The centerpiece of the main hall of the chapel will be a 45-foot, mechanical-action pipe organ. The 3,184-pipe organ is being manufactured in Lake City, Iowa. "It will provide an impressive view as you come into the main room," Gura said.

"Certainly, it's one of the largest and most unique organs in the entire Southeast."

A future plaza will be integrated with the center. It will feature a 75-foot lighted musical sculpture with a multi-tier fountain.

The chapel, which has been in the university's master plan for more than 20 years, got a needed boost when the Sykes' donation was announced in May 2008. Construction began five months later.

The facility, which is next to the John H. Sykes College of Business, is on schedule for completion in late April.

"Then begins the challenge of bringing in the organ dismantled, putting it together and getting it tuned; it could be late 2010 for that," Gura said.

The 12,750-square-foot building - that will include multiple meeting and meditation rooms - will fill a void, said Stephanie Russell Holz, associate dean of students and director of the office of student leadership and engagement.

Student spiritual organizations that participate in Ash Wednesday services, for example, now do so at off-campus churches.

"Now there's going to be a place for those type things to happen," she said. Holz, who is in charge of chapel programming, got to work soon after the 2008 groundbreaking. "By the time the building is complete, all our programs will be in full swing," she said.

Main areas of programming will be character building, spiritual development and world cultures and religions, she said. "We are hoping that broad approach will really lend itself nicely to the concept of it being an interfaith chapel for all different kinds of groups, both spiritual and non-spiritual."

Events will include spiritual lectures and films, book clubs, even discussions on topics such as business ethics.

Holz has forged community outreach partnerships with worship leaders from 23 local churches, synagogues and religious groups such as the Islamic Society of Tampa. "It's created a connection for us with different people in the community," she said.

Those religious leaders and members of the university's eight spiritual organizations already meet for monthly interfaith discussions. Such programs foster face-to-face discussion in this pop culture age of Tweeting and text messaging, she said.

"We're really just trying to get students to talk about things that are important to them and things that matter," she said.

Student Tanner White of Tampa, educational chairman of campus organization Diversity Fellowship, said the chapel will help erase perceived barriers.

"In many cases, academia has been cut off from spirituality; it's almost as though the two have been separated, and that distinction is not necessary," said White, a senior majoring in international cultural studies.

"And even though we've perpetuated that same stereotype over and over again, this Center of Faith and Values is going to bring us back together, is going to be an area where people can come together and learn about these things," he said.