“Before 2021 We’re Out of Space!”
2 Buildings, a Dining hall, and Remodeled Library Announced
By Anna Bowers
“Before 2021 we’re out of space!” said President Wilcox to a chuckling student body, as he explained the growth and the potential of the university, which is expected to reach about 1500 students by that time.
He announced plans for a new academic building, a new residence hall, a new dining area, and a completely remodeled library to Southern Virginia’s student body on April 6, 2018.
Despite this early announcement, the planned construction is contingent on university fundraising. President Wilcox explained that in order to build the buildings, the school will need to raise about 12 million dollars within the next thirty months.
The man overseeing fundraising is Todd Brotherson, Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer. (Dana Oaks will replace him July 1.) He explained that the University is currently in the silent phase of a capital campaign. This means that the University and the board of directors are gathering together some “core funds,” and when a certain amount is reached, they will take the campaign public.
Although active fundraising is ongoing, specific numbers of how much money has been raised so far and how much is still needed will not be announced until fundraising activities have left the silent phase and gone public.
Due to the fact that the university is still in the beginning stages of the project, all current descriptions of the buildings are purely conceptual. That being said, Southern Virginia has relased one conceptual sketch of how the campus could appear in 2021.
The planned building site is to the west of the Von Canon Library, making the building visible to all who drive up the hill. The idea is for there to be an academic building which, according to President Wilcox, “will basically double our classroom space on campus.” A residence hall will accompany the academic building, and a glassed-in “dining and gathering” center will connect the two buildings. There are also plans to connect the academic building with the Von Canon Library, though details of what this might look like have not been made public.
As building plans become more concrete, the University wants to prioritize the connectedness of these distinct spaces: living, studying, and eating. Such prioritization reinforces one of the main goals of the project — to create gathering spaces for both individuals and groups of students. As Brotherson explained, “The concept is to have everything hooked in together to provide ease and comfort for the students.”
How big will the academic building be? How many dorms will be in the residence hall? Brotherson explained that it ought to provide the “classroom, study, and housing needs to combine with the rest of campus to be able to accommodate 1400–1500 students.” More specific facts and figures will be published as the planning process moves beyond its current conceptual phase.
About parking space, Brotherson said, “The administration is cognizant of the desire and need and they are working to find reasonable solutions…They are looking to work with the city community and the campus community to try and maximize the use of space.”
In the announcement to the students, President Wilcox also announced the transformation of the Von Cannon Library into a Learning Commons. He said, “There will be more students and fewer books. There will more electronics and fewer paper printed things. This will be a 21st century library.”
According to Edutopia, a non-profit website that encourages innovation in schools, “Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge.” It is a growing trend in the country as more and more academic libraries are evolving into Learning Commons.
Stephanie Hardy, director of library services at the Von Canon Library, sees this modernization as expanding the library’s purpose. “The goal of the library is to get the best information available to students and to help them find it and use it. [A Learning Commons] is still doing it, just at more points and in more ways.”
Other reasons behind the project are to create and optimize a space that is user friendly. “A space needs to have some way for people to engage with it. If you are only finding through the computer, then the stacks are just a storage space,” explained Dr. Jeremiah John, the University’s incoming Provost.
For inspiration, administrators really like the design of the University of Montana Learning Commons. Although they are still in the discovery phase, here are some possible features the space could include:
- Creation of a more open space by moving the bookshelves onto walls between spaces instead of dominating the floor. This would also allow more natural light into the building, because as of now the bookshelves block a lot of the windows.
- Special “curated” sections that change throughout the year such as “International Relations” or “resources to best help with senior papers.”
- Glassed-in study rooms, reservable for study groups.
- Modular furniture on the main floor, that can easily be reconfigured to meet the needs of different sizes of study groups.
- A café, much like a Starbucks, that offers simple food options and a space to meet and share ideas.
- A more tech friendly environment, with more outlets to charge iPads and wireless printing available.
- A Learning Productivity Center at the heart of the building that would connect students to all of the resources available in the building. It would offer services to help students discover their learning strengths and gaps to become better learners.
Eventually once the fundraising is more complete, the University hopes to bring in an architect to consult with, and also wants to hold focus groups of students and open up for suggestions from the student body.
What will happen to the books? As Hardy phrased it, we will be “rightsizing” as opposed to “downsizing.” The plan is to keep the mission critical books on display, use compact shelving for others, and donate the remaining books that are not needed to Better World Books.
Some of the biggest reasons for the rightsizing are the current low circulation of library materials, the amount of outdated and irrelevant books in the collection, and the increase in digital books online. As Hardy stated, “Rather than having one in three books that are useful, all the books [will be] useful.”
These changes do not mean that all of the books will be gone. Other than the robust inter-library loan partnership the school will continue to have, they will also be acquiring new books to update those that are outdated collection. Even though most materials are available digitally, print books still have their purpose.
About the difference between the uses of digital versus print, Hardy explained, “Sometimes you just have to look at a book for a few pages. An e-book is excellent for that kind of access. Sometimes you really want to read it fifteen times and go back and go through it. In that case, print may be better. So, it’s not that digital and print replace one another, it’s that they have different uses.”
