Boston University 2001 graduate Lisa Frost, who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had once joked with her friend about the possibility of BU naming a building after her for her achievements.

Wearing memorial pins with her smiling face, School of Hospitality Administration faculty joined Frost’s family and friends Saturday afternoon to dedicate the Lisa A. Frost Student Lounge to the former student who died aboard United Airlines Flight 175.

Held on the second floor of the SHA building, SHA dean James Stamas led the ceremony and spoke about his relationship with Frost, a SHA and College of Communication graduate, and her involvement in many aspects of the BU community, including acting as co-president of the SHA student government.

“[The dedication] is probably one of the most important events since I’ve been here,” he said. “I want to treat this as a celebration. We have lamented . . . but today I want this to celebrate this person’s life.

“She wasn’t just a student,” Stamas said later. “I knew her as a person, a student leader . . . a person who had a world in front of her. Whatever you hear, whatever is said, don’t wonder if it’s overstated, because I guarantee it’s understated.”

Frost, the 2001 SHA valedictorian and a BUCOP student who graduated summa cum laude, was on United Airlines Flight 175 when terrorists hijacked the aircraft and flew it into the World Trade Center’s South Tower. She was traveling to her home in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.

Friends and family said her parents and BU decided to dedicate the lounge in her memory because Frost was always in the former SHA building’s lounge.

“This [lounge] says she’ll be here forever,” said Tom Frost, Lisa’s Frost’s father, who also spoke at the event.

Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore called the opportunity to speak at the event “the honor of all honors” and said he recounted the support he found from a motivational prayer book after learning of Frost’s fate.

“Lisa always brought that sense of hope for me,” Elmore said. “She always had that smile. For me, Lisa was about building community . . . and hope.”

Stamas said Frost was “too motivated, too smart to settle for one degree” and discussed her involvement in COM as well. Advertising professor Christopher Cakebread, Frost’s COM adviser and one of her professors who said she made him realize why he loved being a professor, read excerpts from a letter he had written to Frost’s parents Sept. 14, 2001.

“As you know, Lisa was a very special person,” he said. “She had a sparkle in her eye . . . Thank you for sending Lisa to BU.”

Before the event, Tom Frost said he was grateful to his daughter’s friends, especially her friend of 14 years, Jan Lam, who frequently visits Tom Frost and his wife and is “a daughter to us.”

Lam, a School of Management 2001 graduate who went to high school and college with Lisa Frost, spoke at the event about a distinct memory she had of discussing with her friend their “hopes, dreams and futures.” She said she recalled Frost asking jokingly if BU would ever name a building after them for their achievements.

“I think it’s amazing,” Lam said. “It’s exactly what she would have wanted. Her legacy will live on forever. It’s so appropriate.”

Tom Frost began his speech with a moment of silence to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He then spoke about his daughter’s dedication to “making the world a better place” and his attempts to carry on her desire by helping with the Community Food Bank, the March of Dimes and the Beanie Brigade.

“Lisa’s a guardian angel watching over,” Tom Frost said. “We miss her dearly. She loved being here at BU. She’s got this beautiful room to remember her.”

After the event, attendees gathered to speak about Lisa in a room decorated with her artwork from a high school class. Amanda Guile, a SHA 2000 graduate who knew Lisa through student government, said she thought the lounge dedication would inform students of how important Lisa was to the university.

“I think what was said today was very reflective,” she said. “I think that by naming the lounge after her, it will show future students the impact she had on the school.”