A&S Building named for Brent Knight

By Mallory Stiles
Editor in Chief

One of the many important decisions made at the Nov. 13 LCC Board of Trustees Meeting was to formally rename the Arts & Sciences Building. It will now be known as The Brent M. Knight Arts & Sciences Building.

Brent Knight was LCC’s sixth president. He served for a total of 12 years, from 2008 to 2020. Knight said he is on year three of retirement and, although he has found time to relax a little, he still misses the LCC atmosphere.

“It’s great that you can do whatever you think you want to do in a day,” Knight said. “But, on the other hand, working at LCC, we were able to accomplish a lot, and I got to work with a lot of great people. It was the experience of a lifetime. It was rewarding.”

The board has since granted him the title of “president emeritus,” an honorary title granted to someone who has proven to be an outstanding asset to an academic organization.

Knight is remembered for a lot, but was most praised at the last board meeting for a couple of attributes. Trustees Robert Proctor and Andrew Abood praised his philosophy of ambient learning and his redesign of the A&S Building, in particular, in their resolution for renaming the building.

Knight said he and his team spared no detail during the extensive renovation process during his term as president, He said to him, the results made the entire exhausting process completely worth it.

“We worked at it for 12 years,” he said. “My partner in all of it was Tim Martz. Everything in that building was remodeled, and I mean everything: the plumbing, the electrical, the heating and air conditioning. It was a very extensive remodel and we tried to make it so that it would last for many years.”

Knight said he is delighted to have the honor of having a building on campus named after him, but made it very clear that he was never thinking of anything other than the well-being of his students and staff.

“We did not want an ordinary building,” Knight said. “We wanted a great building. Lansing Community College is a fine community college; it’s one of the better community colleges in America. We wanted a building that reflected that.

“We wanted a building that was especially welcoming to the students, a place they would like to be. We also wanted a space that would be inviting to faculty members and a place they would like to work. I think that’s more important than anything else.”

Knight said he still remembers the things that made the A&S stand out to him, post-remodel.

“There’s an extensive use of color throughout that building,” he said. “When you walk in the front door, there is artwork on the right side that I think is great. There are butterflies and a display case; I always liked that. The slices of the human brain, people always find that fascinating. There is the Ernest Hemingway Conference Room.”

LCC gives its students every opportunity to thrive, and the proof is in the projects.

“We wanted a building students could be proud of,” Knight said.