News > August 28, 2008

By CeCe Brooks | News editor

For the class of 2012 and beyond, two new residence halls will be built before graduation. The university recently started official plans for two new residence halls. An architect was just selected and met with staff and students last week.

Matt Cullinan, vice president for administration at the university, says that they hope to begin construction by the end of this academic year and finish by the fall of 2010.

One hall will be in the north part of the campus for upperclass students and the other will be for first-year students on south campus, most likely near Collins Hall.

Cullinan said that a number of factors influenced the decision to build new residence halls, including needed renovations and increased class size.

“It was a combination of knowing that we had added students and hadn’t added any bedding capacity in awhile,” Cullinan said.

“I think the Strategic Plan is also explicit about we’d like more students to live on campus.”

Students have been active in the process for building these new residence halls.

“There have been students involved in the process in terms of what might these halls look like, what are the amenities that are important and what are the other surrounding issues that are important,” Cullinan said.

Not only is the university taking the students’ opinions into consideration, but there are several students on the planning committee including the Student Body President Jermyn Davis and a resident advisor.

One of the most important details that the university is keeping in mind is the student body’s desire for more social space.

One question that the planning committee has addressed is the style of the new residence halls, especially the north campus building.

The most probable possibilities are suites or apartments. Within these styles there are a number of possible configurations the university must consider.

“Students know that we’ve taken a fair amount of our social space, our lounge space and other things and used it for rooms and we’re trying to clean that out slowly, but surely,” Cullinan said.

Despite rumors to the contrary, there are no current plans to build a parking garage on campus as a result of the new construction.

“We have more parking per capita than any of our peers ... will either of these new buildings have a profound effect on parking? The answer is no,” he said. Cullinan says that the university will determine other ways to manage parking. A possibility is creating small parking lots under buildings.

Cullinan said that part of the reasoning behind starting work on these residence halls now is the Strategic Plan.

Now that the plan is nearing the end, the university needs substantial work in order to keep with the timeline set in the plan.

Although we are two years away from seeing the results of these plans, Cullinan said the university is moving at as quick a pace as possible. “We’re moving actually pretty fast ... there are no buildings that take less than two years,” Cullinan said.