Building upgrades will mean new locations for some units

Planned renovations of several buildings will expand classroom space for some academic departments and create a one-stop registration and financial aid center for students.

With additional or newly renovated space becoming available during the next year, the departments of psychology, history, and counselor education likely will be among those expanding into new classrooms and offices.

Renovations should begin this spring to convert Garner Hall, currently a residence hall, into a one-stop student registration center housing Financial Aid, the Registrar, and business office cashiers. That job should be completed by summer 1997.

McArthur Hall, used until this year as the athletic residence hall, should be readied by fall 1997 to accommodate the offices of the Comptroller and Treasurer, Procurement and Contracts, Human Resources, Telecommunications, Agricultural Computing, and Campus Planning and Development.

The renovations are expected to set off a chain reaction of relocations designed to provide more and better classroom space and improved student services, said President Donald Zacharias.

"Several of the proposed moves are tentative at this time, but the university's Space Allocation and Facilities Assignment Committee has carefully studied the space needs of the affected units, and we believe they have outlined a plan that will serve the campus well," Zacharias said.

The Department of Agricultural Education and Experimental Statistics will relocate this spring from the Industrial Technology Building to newly renovated space on the second floor of Ballew Hall. The vacated space in the Industrial Technology Building will be used by the Department of Technology and Education and the Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (RRTC).

The move by Financial Aid to the renovated Garner Hall center will leave the psychology department as the sole occupant of Magruder Hall. The additional space in Magruder will be used for psychology classrooms and other needs.

The move from Allen Hall's first floor by the Registrar and cashiers, as well as the Office of Admissions, will create additional space in Allen for a proposed electronic classroom and computer lab, as well as expansion room for the Computing Center, more classrooms, and a second hallway to accommodate heavy ground-floor traffic.

The Admissions office will relocate to the basement level of Lee Hall, taking over space currently occupied by Telecommunications.

Departing from Allen Hall's second floor will be the Bureau of Educational Research and Evaluation, Very Special Arts, Adult Basic Education, and the Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools (PREPS), all of which will occupy separate buildings on Magruder Street currently used by the RRTC. The Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Institutional Effectiveness (formerly Institutional Research) also will move from Allen's second-floor annex but will relocate to the fifth floor.

The vacated space on the second floor will provide expansion room for the department of History and the addition of general use classrooms. Second floor offices currently used by the Graduate School will move to the first floor.

Most of the space becoming available on Allen Hall's fifth floor when the offices of the Comptroller and Treasurer and Procurement and Contracts move to McArthur will be reassigned to the Department of Educational Psychology and Counselor Education. That department currently is housed in Montgomery Hall, where the move will leave more room for the Department of Landscape Architecture and Student Support Services.

Both the Office of the Comptroller and the Department of Human Resources currently occupy some space in Bost Extension Center, but those offices will be consolidated with their parent units in McArthur Hall. Campus Mail Services also will move this spring from the Bost basement to a house on Magruder Street. Some of the space vacated in Bost Extension Center likely will be occupied by the Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC).