Rising above a sea of gleaming dark wood and the echoes of students chatting over lunch, the eyes of Roosevelt Thompson squint outwards, from behind glaringly oversized glasses. Created by the artist Mirjam Brückner, this linoleum print, approximately two by three feet, hangs prominently above the fireplace, depicting this former student in shades of sepia. Dressed in coke-bottle glasses as well as a suit and tie, this image of Thompson shows him sporting a classically 80’s mustache, with an awkward grin. The hanging of this portrait, part of a series of rebirths that Grace Hopper College has imposed over the past two years, was a bold statement. This black student, a noted activist who died during his senior year, would have graduated in 1984. He was the first black student body president of his high school, Little Rock Central in Arkansas. He was an intern for Bill Clinton, and a Rhodes scholar. This portrait of Thompson replaced the oil painting of John C. Calhoun, the former namesake of Grace Hopper and notorious supporter of the advancement of slavery in the United States. The choice to replace Calhoun’s face with that of a young black man is not accidental, and follows years of protest at and over Hopper College’s acknowledgement of its racist past. This dining hall specifically was the site of direct action by a dining hall worker, who broke stained glass windows bearing images of Calhoun with slaves and cotton fields. The college plans to hire artist Faith Ringgold to design new stained glass to fill the currently blank panes. This portrait of Thompson is hopefully the first step in an ongoing conversation of reinvention and reimagining, as Hopper and Yale as a whole holds itself accountable to its dark history while moving forwards into the light. Thompson’s portrait reminds us that who we choose to praise and value and quite literally hold over our heads does matter. Meanwhile the oil painting of Calhoun currently hangs in the library directly upstairs, face turned to the wall.