Housing changes made to better campus life

Between renovations, construction and future plans, Academic House, the new Honors Academic Village and Carter Hall are the focus of changes to campus housing.

A-House renovations include mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, as well as painting, according to Jason Toth, associate vice president of facilities and construction.

“We’ve upgraded light fixtures to more energy-efficient light fixtures in the facility,” he said. “We’ve been looking at exhaust fans, air handling units, electrical systems to make sure that … we’re addressing deferred maintenance items.”

Toth said the interior painting is funded by the Office of Residence Life operating budget, and the rest is funded from existing operating expenses.

He said the building should come back online in August 2015 to be used that school year.

While the A-House renovations — because they are inside — are not the most noticeable of the modifications to UT’s campus, the construction of the new Honors Academic Village is much more visible.

“The construction started in May of this year, so right after the end of spring semester they broke ground and they’ve been underway,” said Vice President of Real Estate and Business Development Matthew Schroeder. “Thankfully, weather this summer has cooperated, so they are continuing to be slightly ahead of schedule, and they are hoping to be enclosed before the snow flies in December.”

Being on schedule means the Honors Academic Village will open in August 2015, Schroeder said.

“That project will have 492 beds, which they will start by targeting honors students,” Schroeder said, “but it’s really open to all students and it’s considered on-campus housing.”

Lakeesha Ransom, dean of the honors college, said they are very excited about the building’s construction.

“I’ve been here for a little over 18 months now and I know that it’s been part of the larger vision to have a community for honors students to live among other students who maybe have different interests, but the same types of aspirations, so we’re really excited about this coming to fruition,” she said.

Ransom also said there was a desire to enhance the honors community to give students a sense of belonging.

“In a way, that represents their identity as UT students,” Ransom said, “so we want to remain part of the overall campus community as well as have a unique experience for students who would like a live-in honors community.”

The way that live-in experience is becoming a reality is different from any other housing on campus.

“The Honors Academic Village is a unique model,” Toth said. “It’s what they’re calling a public-private partnership … we leased the ground to the developer, the developer at their cost builds the facility, which will then allow our students to have nice living space on campus.”

This way of building on-campus housing does not use student fees or require the university to take on additional debt, according to Schroeder.

At no cost to UT, there will be a brand-new building to house students that choose to live on campus.

“So really, the biggest drive for it is a financial reason,” Toth said.

Schroeder said the architect for the project is Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and the design for the building was reviewed with leadership at the time, involving “Student Government, the [UT Board of Trustees] and … Campus Beautification Committee.”

Schroeder noted that a market analysis was conducted to hear student feedback via an online survey sent to all of UT’s student body at the time.

The design of the building will match the gothic-style of many of the buildings on UT’s campus, but the honors village will match other dorms in more than just style.

“From a pricing perspective, what the team has done is they’ve looked at pricing for last academic year in the suite-style units, those specifically,” Schroeder said, “they looked at President’s Hall, Ottawa House and I think a few others and looked at where the suite pricing from that semester was, and what they did is they tried to mirror that in Honors Academic Village, I guess the short answer is that pricing will mirror or complement on-campus pricing.”

In addition to making sure pricing is the same, Director of Residence Life Virginia Speight, said the relationship between the Office of Residence Life and those who will run the new honors village will be a very close one to ensure all services and resources available to students at other locations are still available to them.

“The company, of course, will have their own staff, their own student employees that will be responsible for the facility, but we will meet at the team weekly to have an understanding of what’s going on in the building, what’s going on in Res Life, let’s do programming together,” Speight said. “So the day-to-day operations, once it gets up and going, they’ll become part of our weekly and monthly staff meetings, things like that.”

Interim Provost John Barrett said he believes the honors village is an exciting new opportunity for housing.

“I’ve heard from some honors students that they love the new singles that they’ve been getting in the honors dorm that we have. On the other hand, there’s also a loss there,” Barrett said, “there’s a sense of privacy, which is nice, but there’s also a sense of isolation. So I think the new honors village will make it easier for the students living there to have a sense of community and to feel like they’re a part of something that’s more connected.”

Changes are also on the way for Carter Hall, though it is less certain what exactly the plan is. What’s clear is that Carter will no longer be an option for housing next school year.

“As far as Carter Hall is concerned going forward, there has not been a determination for sure on what is going to happen,” Toth said. “It was discussed that the facility would be taken offline from a Res Life perspective and potentially, eventually demolished, but there are no for-sure plans.”

The development of the Honors Academic Village adds to the number of available beds on campus, and so to even that number back out, the available beds in Carter have to be taken offline, Toth said.

According to Toth, “there has been a very high-level talk of using Carter as a swing space while we renovate other Res Life facilities,” but Carter would be taken offline eventually because it is one of the oldest buildings.

Part of those conversations about how to proceed involve Barrett and Interim President Nagi Naganathan, Toth said.

“We’re talking about plans for the future and how we want to go forward with plans and looking at the capital spent and if there’s funding available to do further renovations in other Res Life facilities that would require us to use Carter as a swing space,” Toth said.

At this point in time, Carter Hall’s potential use as a “swing space” is unneeded due to there not being major renovation projects scheduled to occur next school year.

“We always maintain the facilities when there is a need for, you know, when we’ve had failed equipment or leaks or those types of things, but we do not have planned in FY15 [fiscal year 2015] any major renovations to any of our Res Life facilities,” Toth said.

Barrett said he is working on looking at where there are needs in UT’s housing.

“We want the housing to be attractive, appealing, what students want, and to create a sense of community as best we can,” Barrett said.

Barrett hopes the students will be enthusiastic about it.

“It’s my hope,” Barrett said, “that we have more students than ever that are looking forward to living on campus and creating that vibe and that energy that you get from a robust on-campus living experience.”