While the University was quieter during the summer months, the face of campus continued to change. Physical Plant performed regular maintenance in University buildings while ongoing construction projects included in the Campus Master Plan advanced on schedule, including the Suzanne Lemberg Usdan University Center and the University Museum.
The Usdan University Center will house classrooms, dining facilities, mail service, meeting rooms, retail space, and storage space on the edge of Andrus Field. Summer construction tackled roofing, masonry, mechanical and electrical rough, and framing, as well as external stone and bricklaying. The building’s structure is now completed.
The attached Fayerweather building will house performance space for theatre and dance as well as a ballroom for formal functions. Construction on Fayerweather included demolition, re-foundations, and roofing.
The entire project, which began in June 2005, will cost a projected $47.4 million. Fayerweather will be finished in December of 2006, and the University Center is scheduled to open in the fall of 2007.
“We’re still exactly on schedule,” said Consultant for Construction Services Alan Rubach.
The University Museum, the rightmost building on College Row, remains in the earliest stages of fundraising, schematic design, and coordination.
“The [museum] is intended to house Wesleyan University’s collections of art and material culture in ways that will support a wide range of innovative learning from objects in a facility that meets accepted museum standards for climate control, security, and display,” according to the Master Plan.
In an effort to consolidate housing in a centralized campus, four residential communities have moved from peripheral houses to renovated dormitories on Foss Hill. Film House, previously on Washington Street, is now located in Nicolson 6. French House, previously on College Street, is now located in Nicolson 7. Japanese and Science houses, both previously on Washington Street, are located in Nicolson 5 and Hewitt 8, respectively.
“They seem thrilled with the new spaces,” said Director of Residential Life (ResLife) Fran Koerting of this year’s program house members.
The spaces, previously used as student storage, are each equipped with a kitchen, a common space, single rooms, and two-room doubles. Koerting expects that these will be the permanent residences of the four communities.
Last year, ResLife announced that it would sell a number of program houses and would transfer those communities to dormitories.
“We told them, ‘Whoever is interested in these spaces can help design them,’” Koerting said. “They weren’t forced out.”
Unexpectedly, students now occupy the four program houses that were earmarked to be sold, as well as a vacant senior woodframe house. The comparatively large incoming Class of 2010, in combination with this semester’s lower-than-expected percentage of students studying abroad, created an excess of 100 students without housing.
“We had to look at different options,” Koerting said.
Sophomores occupy two of the re-opened houses, while the remaining three are senior residences. ResLife expects that the five houses will not be needed for student housing after this academic year.
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