La Salle plans to dismantle existing Japanese tea house

By Shannon Curley
Collegian Reporter
September 12, 2007

After two decades, La Salle’s Japanese Tea House is being taken apart. Those directly involved with the operation of the tea house were disappointed with the administration’s decision to knock it down.

“I was extremely disappointed,” Dougherty said. “It’s fair to say I was upset.”

Erin Brodbeck- The Japanese Tea House was founded nearly twenty years ago.

It is unclear why the decision was made to take down the tea house or what will be put in its place.

Dougherty stated that the University has expressed an interest in relocating the program in which tea ceremonies are performed. It although it is also unclear what steps have been taken to put that plan into action.

According to Assistant Vice President for University Communications Joe Donovan, tea house items were removed at the end of August and put into storage.

Donovan confirmed that a meeting took place Aug. 28 between people from La Salle and those connected with tea house

Dougherty, Vice President of University Advancement Brian Elderton and Provost Richard Nigro were among the members present at this meeting.

"The purpose of the meeting was to have a discussion with people close to the tea house about the possibility of relocation,” Donovan said. “As of right now, whatever is going to happen remains unresolved.”

Donovan also commented that a recommendation was made during the meeting to move the ceremony to a nearby building.

Neither Elderton nor Nigro was available for comment after several attempts to reach them Sept. 11.

Also unavailable was Dr. Bernhardt Blumenthal, the Director of the Language Department, who has been operating the tea house for the last seven years.

The house itself is situated on the quietest section of campus. Rolling green hills, flower beds and a small wooden bridge lead up to the house.

However, this tranquil space will now see even less use. The tea house was founded exactly twenty years after it was founded by Brother Joseph Keenan, F.S.C., Ph.D, a religion professor at La Salle until his death in 1999.

He was trained in the ritualistic serving of Japanese tea, called Chado. This is an art form taken very seriously by those who practice it.

The program at La Salle was licensed by the Urasenke School of Tea, an international program based in Kyoto, Japan.

The grand master of the Urasenke School gave the tea house its name and donated many of the utensils used during the tea ceremony.

The house was used exclusively for the tea ceremony classes, and its interior was specially designed by a Japanese architect.

After Keenan’s death, the class was re-listed as a language course as opposed to a religion course. There were three professors who taught the tea ceremony.

“Tea instruction is like music instruction, so ideally students would be taught one-on-one,” said Brother Joseph Dougherty, who studied the art of Chado for over two years and became an advocate for the program at La Salle.

According to Dougherty, there were many people interested in learning the tea ceremony and the professor often taught small groups.

“When I was learning, there would be about eight to 10 people from the surrounding community and about 15 La Salle students per semester. The University of Pennsylvania also occasionally had classes that used our facility with about 12 to 15students.”

La Salle affiliates are concerned with the relocation of the tea house. Freshmen students in First Year Odyssey classes and religion classes visited this building. More developments are to come.

curleys1@lasalle.edu