After nearly a year of construction, BSOS officials have begun moving into the newly renovated Chincoteague Hall — a move they said could help bring together a department that was once scattered across the campus.
Although many students in the behavioral and social sciences college hoped Chincoteague Hall — the building formerly used for the journalism college on McKeldin Mall that underwent a $7.1 million facelift last year — would provide a set of new classrooms, BSOS officials said they thought the building would be best served hosting a set of administrative offices. Since faculty members from the college have offices in buildings all over the campus, officials said they have not been able to efficiently collaborate over the last several years.
“The move brings together a group of faculty and staff engaged in international affairs programs — a group that used to be scattered in different places,” said Virginia Haufler, a professor and director of global communications. “It makes it so much easier for us to discuss issues, plan projects and build a community.”
While the Facilities Master Plan — a 123-page guideline outlining the landscaping and development goals for the campus through 2030 — calls for the construction of 24 new buildings in the midst of a 1.7 million square foot land shortage, Facilities Management officials recently found a 234,000 square foot deficit for office spaces on the campus — more than twice the 70,000 square foot classroom shortfall.
“We were overextended because we have faculty that were currently working off campus, and so now we’ve been able to provide them with a facility,” BSOS Director of Facilities Dona Morgan said. “There’s a deficit of space and so this was very helpful, moving many of our faculty into Chincoteague.”
Many BSOS students said they understood the college’s decision to use the building for offices but still hope to move into nicer classroom facilities soon.
“Personally, I would have loved to see it as a classroom building given that Tydings is really ugly and run down and it’s not a fun place to be a student,” said Benjy Cannon, a freshman government and politics major. “But at the same time, I understand the university’s decision given the larger deficit.”
Others said they thought the space would be better served by providing students with a better classroom setting.
“I feel like there should definitely be more classrooms,” said freshman French and government and politics major Marlon Copeland. “If there’s a deficit with the administrative aspect, I guess that’s important, too. … I assumed [if it was] remodeled they were going to use it for classrooms.”
In the coming years, officials said they hope to close the gap on space shortages and have enough classrooms and offices for everyone on the campus.
“With any unit on the campus, any department, any academic unit, you’re going to have a mixture of types of spaces,” said Director of Facilities Planning Brenda Testa. “Any time we build facilities, hopefully it’s putting a little bit of a dent into that deficit so that deficit gets to be a smaller number.”
amenabar@umdbk.com
