Officials at Stamp Student Union are hoping to squeeze more campus groups into the building’s offices through a $1 million renovation set to begin this month.
Stamp will absorb the America Reads*America Counts program and its volunteer staff of almost 450 this summer, presenting a challenge for a building already tight on space. Officials are working to reorganize and renovate Stamp’s office space so they can accommodate everyone in the most efficient and green way possible.
“We’ve got to find ways to accommodate a large group of people in space that just isn’t there,” said Stamp Director Marsha Guenzler-Stevens.
Every few years, Stamp seeks out the input of the faculty, staff and students who call its office space home. The last review, which took place two years ago, led officials to design a project that would revamp the current space and put departments that work together in closer proximity. The plan also includes creating a new home for America Reads*America Counts, which school officials displaced from Holzapfel Hall in preparation for accomodating the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center.
“The spaces will be reconfigured to create office space. This is consistent with how departments are organized within the Stamp,” said Steve Gnadt, Stamp associate director. Most of the work will be taking place on the ground and first floors, he said.
Officials began some of the work in the summer, moving student groups on the ground floor and completing a controversial renovation of the Student Involvement Suite. The second phase, however, is set to begin this month and will continue through this coming summer to minimize disruption of the campus community.
“We’ve been in the process of redesigning some of our large office space to accommodate the movement, to accommodate the staff that works in those areas,” Guenzler-Stevens said. “Quite honestly, the biggest piece of construction is what’s going to happen over the summer months.”
Among the offices moving are the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Leadership and Community Service Learning and the Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy offices.
“We’re happy to have offices, wherever they are,” said Bob Nichols, Fraternity and Sorority Life associate director.
Fraternity and Sorority Life will take over Student Entertainment Events’ old suite at the end of the semester. Nichols said he’s looking forward to the new offices, which Stamp officials designed with input from employees. The new suites will include green materials, such as LED lights instead of fluorescent bulbs, to maximize sustainability and efficiency.
The Graduate Student Life office will be getting a more visible home on the ground floor as well — a welcome change for a group that Guenzler-Stevens said doesn’t get much attention.
“They were always sort of tucked away on the first floor, and so now we really want to make sure that folks can more easily find [Graduate Student Government] and Graduate Student Life,” she said.
The project isn’t without its drawbacks, though.
Workers will have to carve out some space from the ground floor women’s bathroom to make room for the Graduate and Undergraduate Student Life suites, and the offices of Technology Services and Event and Guest Services have “growing staff demands,” Guenzler-Stevens said. Additionally, officials said they’re trying to come up with ways to minimize the construction’s impact on summer conferences, meetings and orientations hosted in Stamp.
Guenzler-Stevens added officials are still working out the kinks of the renovations to the Student Involvement Suite, which displaced a number of student groups. A work group on the controversial suite renovation is set to conclude this semester.
Nevertheless, officials are confident the renovations will create a more efficient work environment for those who already work at Stamp and for new staff members, as well as students visiting these departments.
“We hope we’re going to do some pretty exceptional work in reconceptualizing what work space is,” Guenzler-Stevens said.
