Gordon Hall

Gordon Hall, PERI's home since the summer of 2003, is a 20,000-square-foot office building located on a privately owned site adjacent to the UMass Amherst campus. It also houses the UMass Legal Studies Department and the Labor Relations and Research Center. Gordon Hall was designed by Professor Sigrid Miller Pollin, a faculty member in the Architectural Studies and Interior Design unit of the UMass Department of Art.

You can click on the photographs of Gordon Hall below to see enlarged images of the various perspectives of our beautiful new workplace. One unique feature of our atrium space is the inclusion of a plaque listing all of the people, from all trades, who worked and contribued toward the creation of Gordon Hall.

Gordon Hall honors two distinguished but unrelated academic leaders who happen to share the same last name—Glen Gordon, who retired as dean of the UMass College of Social and Behavior Sciences in 2003; and the late Professor David M. Gordon of the New School for Social Research. The plaque at the front entrance of Gordon Hall explains why PERI chose to honor these two people with the naming of Gordon Hall. The plaque reads as follows:

Glen Gordon served the University of Massachusetts Amherst with great distinction for 38 years, as a Professor and Chair in the Political Science Department, Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Provost of the University, retiring in August 2002. His various terms as an administrator were marked by intelligence, fair-mindedness, a sense of humor, and significant tangible accomplishments. In his final position prior to retirement, Dean Gordon was instrumental in both the creation of the Political Economy Research Institute and in enabling this building to become a reality.

David Gordon (1944 – 1996) was one of the most influential political economists in the world, as well as a dedicated teacher, at the time of his tragic death at age 51. He had been Dorothy Hirshon Professor of Economics and founding Director of the Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the Graduate Faculty of the New School University . Professor Gordon conducted pioneering research in the areas of labor economics, macroeconomics, globalization and economic policy. He was also a relentless fighter for a more just and humane society. His research approach, combining rigorous standards and a spirit of solidarity with working people and the poor, serves as both a model and inspiration at PERI.