Knoxville area faculty and staff are invited to an employees-only event to celebrate the opening of the new home to the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, 4 – 6 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 29. The new center is located on the corner of Cumberland Avenue and Melrose Place.
The Baker Center, which had been housed in Hoskins Library, opened in 2003 to develop programs and promote research to further public knowledge of our governance system and to highlight the importance of public service. Construction on the 53,000-square-foot facility began shortly after a November 2005 groundbreaking and was funded entirely by private dollars.
The facility includes a museum that tells the story of how government works using Senator Baker’s life as a backdrop and also explores modern Tennessee politics and engages audiences in interactive exhibits. The building also houses the Modern Political Archives, which hold more than 100 collections of political papers from prominent Tennessee leaders. The center has a 200-seat auditorium as well as classrooms and break-out rooms.