What's going on around campus?

According to Alan Symicek, the director of facilities, McMillan and May Hall have undergone construction during the summer months. May Hall will be closed during the spring semester of 2020 for extended construction work to become disability and handicap accessible. The Nelson Center has been demolished as of August.

“When Nelson came down that allowed us on the west end to make the building ADA accessible. We’re also adding an elevator. We want to provide options to students who may have disabilities. We also updated the heating system, the basement is getting some remodeling.” Symicek continued, “McMillan was all remodeled with new bathrooms.”

Grimm Hall is expected to receive renovations next summer.

Facilities is currently working on redoing the whole electrical distribution of campus, which is about $5 million project.

“The utility brings power in at one location and then we are responsible for putting underground wires and cables throughout all the buildings and maintaining power to that.” Symicek continued, “What this project is really doing is replacing 35 year old equipment which is beyond its life. It’s also increasing the reliability of the power on campus because we’re going to have two power lines coming in that we can feed off of.”

If campus were to lose one source of power during a storm, there would now be a backup. “Most people kind of like their electricity, including me,” said Symicek.

According to Symicek, Rodli is on schedule, with plans to re-open in December. There will be 14 departments going into Rodli including admissions, veterans services, career services and student health and counseling. The building will be called the Student Success Center. According to Elizabeth Frueh, the assistant chancellor for business and finances, the Rodli remodel cost $15.9 million.

When the University Center opened, all the food was there instead of Rodli. “The building got used for miscellaneous things. The campus started looking at how can we best utilize that building for campus,” said Symicek.

The university eventually came up with a compilation of departments related to student success.