UWG News

Topping Out Ceremony for new campus center

August 18, 2005

CARROLLTON, GA - Construction is well underway on the new Campus Center at the University of West Georgia and to celebrate, a special event for students is planned. A “Topping Out Ceremony” will be conducted Tuesday, Aug. 23, at 3:30 p.m. This "make your own" ice cream sundae party will take place under the tent in front of the construction site near the TLC and the Library.

Following the ceremony, brief tours will be conducted of a limited portion of the construction site.

During spring and summer semesters, students were invited to sign a beam that will be used in the structure. The ceremony will allow students and the campus community to watch the placing of that beam on the top of the facility – hence the name, “Topping Out Celebration.” A tree will also be placed at the top of the structure (see the history of this tradition below).

The three–phase Campus Center will provide UWG students with a first class recreational facility. Currently under construction is Phase One (53,724 square feet), which is being built around the existing HPE building and will house a comprehensive fitness center, aerobics rooms, game room, 45-foot climbing wall, meeting rooms, student organization office space and outdoor recreation storage. Construction is scheduled to be complete in Fall 2006.

The Student Government Association (SGA) voted to initiate an $8.25 per credit hour fee to fund the first two phases of the Campus Center.

Will Gaither of Brasfield & Gorrie, general contactors for the project, provided a history of the “topping out” tradition (from The Ironworker, published by the International Association of Bridge, Structural, and Ornamental Ironworkers, Washington, DC.)

“The beam and the tree represent one of the construction industry’s oldest customs – the ‘topping out’ of a completed project. To discover the origin of the topping out, it’s necessary to trace the development of human shelter. At one time, Europe was covered with a vast forest. Those who inhabited the forest were dependent on trees for their survival. Because of this great dependence on the forest, people began to revere trees. In fact, trees were the most common deity in Europe prior to the adoption of Christianity.

Humans began constructing their shelter with wood. Before cutting a tree, they would formally address the forest, reminding it of the consideration they had always shown toward the trees and asking the forest to grant use of a tree for construction of their home. When the house was complete, the topmost leafy branch of the tree used would be set atop the roof so that the tree spirit would not be rendered homeless. The gesture was supposed to convince the tree spirit of the sincere appreciation of those building the home.

As time passed, the early conception of tree worship gradually changed. The individual tree spirits merged into a single forest god who could pass freely from tree to tree. Trees were no longer placed atop the home to appease spirits, but rather to enlist the blessings of the forest god. The tree branches on top of the home ensured fertility of the land and the home.

The custom of placing a tree on a completed structure came with immigrants to the United States and became an integral part of American culture in barn raisings and housewarmings.

Today the custom is continued most frequently on completed structures such as bridges and skyscrapers. Ironworkers have carried on the topping out tradition and consider it their own. While others join the celebration of topping out, it is the ironworkers and their skills that make them first to reach the pinnacle of a structure, and it is around this group of workers that topping out revolves.”

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