Andrea Martinez

The former Scandinavian Center, which is now utilized as student housing for California Lutheran University, located at 26 Faculty Road.

After more than two decades of partnership, the Scandinavian American Cultural and Historical Foundation will no longer house its Scandinavian Center at 26 Faculty Road on California Lutheran University’s campus. The building will instead be used as student housing to bring in extra revenue for the university.

Fred Tonsing, who served four terms as vice president of SACHF and three terms as president, said in an email interview that the center was established in the 1960s as a means of honoring Cal Lutheran’s founders and its early donors.

“It was started by professors and staff of the school, but has remained an independent association but hosted by the university,” Tonsing said. “The Scandinavian Center has been a presence on CLU’s campus for nearly 50 years. Its purpose is to honor the founders of the university.”

Tonsing, professor emeritus of Greek and religious art, said the center experienced a lot of “anguish” after its move out of the house in May, and that it is in a hibernation period while it awaits details surrounding the center’s future.

“There was anguish and a lot of tears all around. We are still in shock,” Tonsing said. “We are in ‘suspended animation’ now, waiting to resume our place in the university and its life.”

Janice Walsh, director of the Scandinavian Center, said the D Building, located behind the Swenson Science Center, will temporarily house 5,000 books in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and Finland Atlantic languages, as well as hundreds of pieces related to the history and arts of the Nordic regions until a permanent area is determined.

“Most of the museum pieces are in storage and we are working on those in the D Building. We’re doing work there cataloguing and archiving most of our museum pieces,” Walsh said.

Walsh said the move split the center between two locations—the D Building and the garage of the original building—with the office remaining in the latter.

“They moved us out of what we occupied in the house part, and we’re now in storage in the D Building on campus, but we still have the garage of the original house. We still have the library intact and that is where our office is, so we’re split between two locations,” Walsh said.

Walsh said the center is in a period of “transition” as they try to determine a permanent solution.

“We can only have the D Building until May, so we are in a bit of a transition as we try to determine what the next step is and figuring out if we can, hopefully, have a place on campus,” Walsh said.

The location also served as a meeting place for community members and students of Scandinavian heritage.

“In all honesty, we were very saddened because we had been there for 20 years because everything flowed out of there. We could have different meetings there and it was a social hub in addition to being a nonprofit,” Walsh said.

Walsh said that while there is a lot of sadness surrounding the closure, the foundation understands given the university’s financial situation.

“We were all very sad to lose the house, but we all understood that it had to happen,” Walsh said. “We have always considered ourselves a part of CLU.”