University of the Pacific will transform a vacant sorority house into boutique lodging for alumni, families and other guests visiting the historic Stockton Campus.

The Pacific Inn, at the eastern edge of campus adjacent to the President’s Residence, is expected to open in 2025 and will offer visitors an authentic taste of life at Pacific. The project is championed by Regent Cindy Foster and her husband, Scott, who made a generous lead gift this fall.

“The Pacific Inn has so much potential to impact the university and its students in truly transformative ways,” Regent Foster said. “Scott and I are thrilled to help Pacific realize this vision.

“We hope our gift inspires others to join us in supporting the Inn. It’s an exciting opportunity to set Pacific apart from its peers as a model of hospitality and innovative approaches to learning.”

The Pacific Inn will occupy the former Delta Delta Delta (also known as TriDelta) sorority house. It will have approximately 20 private rooms and suites, along with a Grand Parlor, library, dining room, commercial kitchen for catered events and a front patio terrace overlooking the campus.

The Inn is a strategic imperative for President Christopher Callahan and First Lady Jean Callahan, who see endless possibilities for experiential learning and community engagement.

"At the Pacific Inn, visitors will be welcomed and fully embraced by Pacific, whether they are parents visiting their daughters and sons, new families checking out our beautiful campus for the first time or alumni coming home again,” the first lady said. “This is an amazing opportunity for learning and community building. It will be a real jewel in the university’s crown.”

The Inn will provide elegant accommodations for alumni returning to their alma mater and parents visiting current students. It will be open to the Stockton community, including wedding parties using Morris Chapel. Most importantly, it will allow prospective students and families to experience campus life first-hand.

According to Vice President for Enrollment Strategy Chris Ferguson, a big part of Pacific’s overall enrollment strategy involves engaging more students from outside of California. With no easily walkable hotels in the area, he looks forward to hosting overnight visitors on campus.

“How can we help people understand how great Pacific is? There’s no better way than to have them stay here for a day or two, to really immerse themselves,” Ferguson said. “We’re recruiting families, not just students, and by not having to find a hotel a couple of miles away, families will be able to understand what it’s really like here.”

Ferguson also points to the Inn as a lodging option for out-of-town high school counselors looking to better understand and promote Pacific in their home cities.

Before the Pacific Inn was conceived, the building was home to generations of students. Built in 1926, it housed the Mu Zeta Ro sorority until the early 1940s. It then became Navy barracks for the V-12 program, which sought to produce military officers trained in fields such as engineering, foreign languages and medicine. The program operated on campus for three years.

The building later served as a women’s residence hall. It was occupied in 1947 by Tau Kappa Kappa, which affiliated with TriDelta in the late 1950s and ultimately became known as the Phi Rho chapter of TriDelta. Over the next six decades Phi Ro launched numerous events and fundraisers for underserved children in San Joaquin County. The national organization closed the Pacific chapter and others on the West Coast due to declining membership.

Meantime, Student Life Vice President Maria Blandizzi and leaders in Campus Life and Residence Life and Housing are making progress toward their goal of rejuvenating and filling up the other six Greek houses on campus—three sororities and three fraternities—after a decade of Greek life decline. Callahan and Blandizzi believe a rejuvenated Greek life is an integral part of Pacific’s future. Part of the investment comes in the form of facilities improvements to each house in summer 2024.

The Pacific Inn will continue serving students in a new capacity. Students in the Eberhardt School of Business must fulfill an experiential learning requirement through an approved course or internship. As a fully functioning hotel, the Inn could employ students studying management, marketing, human resources and business analytics to support its operations.

Students could help manage the Pacific Inn’s finances, develop marketing plans or administer customer satisfaction surveys, explained Interim Dean Lewis Gale.

“This allows the university to have a partnership with our students, where they’re able to make decisions, test them, gather data, analyze it and turn right around and make new decisions about how we want to go forward. I think it’s terrific,” Gale said.

Gale notes that Pacific is exploring a major in hospitality and tourism, which he hopes will leverage the expertise of alumni in the field while giving students an edge in the job market.

“This kind of experience might change students’ thoughts about what they could eventually consider for employment,” Gale said. “The kind of work a student could do at the Pacific Inn makes them well prepared to go to larger cities and locations where the hospitality industry is a major player.”

Jean Callahan, who is leading the fundraising effort for the Pacific Inn, looks forward to bringing members of the Pacific community together. She envisions a space that truly celebrates the university, from themed rooms to special events. These might include reunions, wine tastings or dinners serenaded by Conservatory of Music students.

“Christopher and I are excited about all the ways the Pacific Inn will contribute to an even more student-centric university,” she said.

Added Vice President Ferguson, “It’s an opportunity to tell many different stories about our alumni and current students. Integrating that into one space is pretty powerful.”

To learn more about supporting the Pacific Inn, contact First Lady Jean Callahan at 209.946.2222 or jcallahan@eraglobe.com, or Scott Biedermann ’05, ’20, vice president for development and alumni relations, at 209.946.2166 or sbiedermann@eraglobe.com.