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Construction on the
Virginia Avenue Housing and Dining Facility signals the
beginning of an overhaul for MU residence halls, which
aims to update the infrastructure, amenities and technology
in facilities and to prepare for enrollment gains. The
steel substructure in the foreground is the dining hall.
The four new residence halls are in the background. Photo
by Steve Morse
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Next-Generation
Campus Living
By Erica Brooks
The days of sweating in sweltering rooms
and blowing residence hall fuse boxes are nearly over for students
living in University of Missouri-Columbia housing. With construction
underway on the Virginia Avenue Housing and Dining Facility,
the University has launched its Residential
Life Master Plan. The plan outlines the 15-year process
of upgrading or replacing all 19 residence halls at MU.
The Residential Life Master Plan is budgeted
at $300 million and will be supported by Residential
Life revenues. Each phase of the master plan is financially
self-supporting.
The Virginia Avenue facility will be the
first residence hall constructed since Gillett
Hall in 1965. It will house 721 students beginning fall
2004.
“We know that the residence halls
provide a wonderful opportunity for students to learn and establish
lifelong friendships,” said Frankie Minor, director of
residential life. “We’ve worked closely with students
to design facilities that meet their needs both educationally
and interpersonally for years to come.”
The complex takes a modern attitude toward
student living and incorporates MU’s trend-setting living-learning
programs. Mizzou offers 85 Freshman
Interest Groups (FIGs) and 23 learning
communities, where students with shared academic interests
live in the same residence hall and often attend classes together.
The new residence halls are designed to enhance the function
of these groups by providing seminar rooms and computer labs
to use as meeting places and community development areas.
Kari Taylor is the FIGs student coordinator
for the 2003-04 school year. She has been part of the planning
process for the new residence hall as a peer advisor to a FIG.
“This new hall gives learning communities
the opportunity to move into an environment that will make them
even more successful because it is designed to make the communities
more close-knit and cohesive,” Taylor said.
Virginia Avenue living arrangements include
semi-suite single and double room layouts, which allow two to
four students to share a semi-private bath. Double suites will
be available to groups of four students and offer the semi-private
bath option and a shared living room. A limited number of single
rooms with a private bath will also be available for live-in
hall staff. Mark Twain Residence Hall is the only existing MU
residence hall that offers a similar housing option.
Besides having semi-private toilets and
showers, the rooms will also have high speed Internet, cable
TV and telephone. Double rooms will be equipped with 16 electrical
outlets and single rooms will have 10 outlets, allowing students
to bring a microwave, a mini-fridge, computers, stereo systems,
blow-dryers, video game machines, and many other appliances
now common in college students’ lives.
Cramer Hall, built in 1947,
as it
looked in 1951. Photo courtesy of University Archives |
Older buildings were not designed to withstand
the strain that today’s technology and culture puts on
power sources. The oldest residence hall, Defoe,
dates back to 1939. Electrical systems of other halls will be
updated according to the Residential Life Master Plan.
Joyce DeHart Lynch, BS HE ’69, lived
in Schurz
Hall in the mid-60s.
“Of course, there weren’t Internet
and phone connections in each room, and we didn’t have
cell phones,” Lynch said. “We had only one phone
for each wing of the floor. There was no microwave for popcorn,
and we had to take our popcorn poppers to the laundry room in
the basement to use them. In some ways college life back then
was not as luxurious as it is today.”
Each suite will also have its own individual
heating and cooling system, allowing students the luxury of
setting their suite’s temperature independently from all
other rooms in the building. In common areas throughout the
hall, wireless networking will give students the opportunity
to access the Internet on a personal laptop computer.
“The new campus living options will
be a terrific attraction for prospective students,” said
Ann Korschgen, vice provost for enrollment management. “Students
today have different expectations about campus living. Our master
plan addresses these needs and offers an excellent strategy
for helping us meet changing expectations.”
A name for the complex has not yet been
chosen.
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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