Hutton Honors College expects to move in this winter break

As the frenetic activity taking place within the looming structure on the corner of Seventh Street and Woodlawn Avenue might divulge, the construction of the new Hutton Honors College is nearly complete.

The ground-breaking ceremony took place last fall, said HHC Dean Matt Auer, but the building itself should be basically finished sometime in November. He expects everyone will move in at some point during winter break or soon after, and the dedication ceremony will take place in late January or early February.

The idea for a new building for the HHC was spawned near the end of 2004, said Provost Karen Hanson, when Ed Hutton decided to give a multi-million dollar endowment to fund the construction of a facility that could better meet the needs of HHC students and staff.

“Mr. Hutton wanted a building more becoming of a real college,” Auer said.

The new facility is expected to cost $3.6 million.

“We tried to produce something that could accommodate everything we wanted in one space,” Hanson said. Auer described Hanson as instrumental in getting the new building.

The current HHC, located on the corner of Seventh Street and Jordan Avenue, is a converted house. While it served the HHC’s purposes, Auer said the new HHC will have much better facilities, including a Great Room to host student functions, speakers and extracurricular activities, along with several classrooms, a seminar room and a collaborative study room that can accommodate between 30 and 35 students.

“Having (the new HHC) would only be an improvement on what we have now,” Auer said.

Hanson, former dean of the HHC, said having everyone – staff and students – in one place is a major upgrade, saying it will be easier for staff to communicate.

Some students are satisfied about having a more concentrated location.

“It’s great,” said junior Michael Sampson-Akpuru, a member of the HHC’s Student Advisory Board. “Having a new infrastructure adds more credibility (to the HHC).”

Sophomore Jessica Lehfeldt said she deals with scattered meetings and thinks the new HHC will help.

“I think it’s a nicer building, and I like the fact that it’s consolidated,” she said.

The location of the new building also elicited approval from students and administration.

“It will be nice to have a central location,” said senior William Yu.

“The location is perfect,” Sampson-Akpuru said. “It’s right across from the IMU, which is the most-trafficked building on campus.”

Auer also expressed appreciation for many of the aesthetic nuances of the new building, including a colonnade, an English garden and a copper cupola he said would generate a “quality of grandeur.”

“It’s built on the scale of a college you’d see in Oxford or Cambridge,” he said.
Hanson said the new HHC would “beautify one of the entry points on to campus.”