With the expansion having officially begun March 2012, power tools sounding off during classes and a blocked entrance were among the obstacles students and faculty endured throughout the process.
“It’s just the nature of the beast,” senior lecturer Cindy Stone said. “Construction with a building that’s not empty is hard work for everyone.”
As students returned to campus, they were greeted with a construction-free entrance on 10th Street and Fee Lane.
They now had new classrooms and facilities and an open student commons area.
Now a couple weeks into the semester, Stone said the new developments continue to be a positive and uplifting change for both the students and professors.
“It’s a delight to walk into this brand-new building,” she said.
Of the improvements for Hodge Hall, the commons area underwent the most change, Stone added.
Many architectural pieces from the old structure were recovered and used to enhance the new commons area in Hodge Hall.
“They salvaged these marble walls and turned them into new desks and tables,” Stone said. “And these trees that were chopped down in the front of 10th Street, they made them into beautiful oak and pieces of wood that are now floors and entryways and flooring surfaces all around.”
The commons occupies a large free space and provides students with a way to meet with groups or unwind between classes.
Students agreed the Hodge Hall expansion is accommodating to their busy schedules.
“We didn’t have a lot of this sit-down space that we have out here,” senior Greg Nelson said. “It was very constrained, really tight — too many students and not enough space.”
Senior lecturer of accounting, Richard Schrimper, said that he felt the space provided by the commons was valuable.
“The ability to have space to just sit and collaborate, to work in small group settings, to have a place to lounge in between classes, it’s extremely comfortable and just high-quality environment,” ?Schrimper said.
Stone said the updated facility will continue to benefit the school and its students acting as a recruiting mechanism.
“It’s going to help not only with recruitment, it’s going to help more students to have a major or a minor in Kelley, because it’ll be more space,” Stone said. “We were bursting at the seams.”
As the number of business students continues to increase each year, the roughly 90,000 additional square feet of facilitates Hodge Hall’s population growth.
In addition to the student commons, Kelley introduced 20 more classrooms and meeting rooms, including a 2,000-square-foot room for large ?meetings.
“The seats are designed in a U-shape instead of just having rows and rows going all the way back,” junior Kelsey Blake said. “There’s really not a bad seat. You can pretty much see everything he’s doing from whatever seat you’re in.”
Students are confident the increase in space and classroom capacities will continue to advance the business school’s.
“What was holding Kelley back in the rankings was it didn’t have good classroom space,” Nelson said. “As we’ve finished up our renovations, we’ve seen a steady improvement of the rankings.”
Regardless of the sacrifices, Schrimper said, the end result was worthwhile.
“I’m old enough to know that you need some pain to get the gain, and the construction was well worth the effort,” he said. “The students are now getting the full benefit, which is all I really care about.”
