RENOVATIONS WILL CLOSE UNIVERSITY BUILDING

The oldest building on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, which was completed in 1902, the social science building, will be renovated beginning this summer. The plan is designed to upgrade its mechanical, electrical and heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and the building's faculty office and classroom spaces.

In order to facilitate the renovation, the building will be closed early in the eight-week summer session, which began last week. It is expected to remain closed throughout the fall semester. All summer and fall classroom assignments will be moved to other locations.

Moving the faculty and staff is expected to take two to three weeks. Departments to be temporarily relocated are history, political science, and sociology and anthropology.

"We hope this project will reconfigure of~fice and classroom space in a more efficient manner," said Ken Dobbins, vice president for finance and administration.

Dobbins said initial plans called for a smaller scale renovation project, but after assessing the building, University officials decided "more HVAC and electrical upgrades were needed than anticipated."

Faculty based in the social science building will be moved to temporary office space in faculty study carrels on the third and fourth floors of Kent Library. Each faculty member will be provided one and one-half carrels, with the half carrel to be used for storage of books and research materials. Offices of department chairs will be moved to several Kent Library meeting areas. In total, about 38 faculty, clerical-technical-service employees, and graduate assistants will be temporarily relocated.

According to Martin Jones, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, classes taught in the social science building will be moved to seven regular classroom areas in Kent Library, and a number of others will be scheduled in other buildings on campus.

The library was chosen as the temporary site of faculty office and classroom space because private offices with telephones and mainframe hookups were available along with existing classroom space, Jones said. The space in the library also could be made available quickly and economically with the cooperation of James Zink, library director.

Students will be notified of the new location of their classes when they receive their statement of account and class schedules during the first week of July, Dobbins said.

"We will try to minimize disruption as much as possible in the library during the moving process," Dobbins said.

Since Kent Library study carrels already have some desks available for use, furniture in the social science building, such as desks, will be temporarily stored in the Harry L. Crisp Bootheel Education Center in Malden during the renovation project, Dobbins said.

"It's going to be a good situation on a temporary basis," said Peter Bergerson, chair of the department of political science, which is located in the basement of the social science building. "I think there is a genuine university commitment to have quality office space for faculty. Having really professional offices when we return will be worth it."

Partial funding for the project will be provided through the university's new budget carryover policy, in which one-third of funds carried over by various unit budgets across campus from fiscal 1993 will be diverted to the University's fund balance to be used for contingencies.

"These monies will be used for the social science building project," Dobbins said, adding that the total cost of the project will be determined during the architectural and engineering portion of the process. Booker and Associates of St. Louis will be responsible for architectural and engineering plans for the project.

In addition, academic affairs remodeling funds and a portion of fiscal 1994 capital funds also will be used.

Renovation of the social science building has been planned for several years, but the project has not received state funding.

"If final costs exceed these sources of funds, we may be asking the legislature for an additional special appropriation for this essential renovation," Dobbins said.