Student Housing Business is the voice of the student housing industry.
Issue link: https://studenthousingbusiness.epubxp.com/i/564824
VIE W FROM THE ACADEME STUDENT HOUSING BUSINESS .COM JULY/AUGUST 2015 83 Calhoun: From a student life perspective, the student experience, for us, is always the goal. Whatever we're doing, the goal is how can we create an extraordinary student experience. From my perspective, it is asking, 'what is it about facilities and operations that enhances that student experience?' Not only from the programmatic side of things — those are the things we typically talk about — but from our perspective, what are the things that we do in a building that maybe people don't see. What are the kind of the behind the scenes things that are important? What are the things that we're doing in that building to be sure that that space is the best? When you're meeting with a faculty member, what is going to be really important to you in terms of how that interac- tion goes? For example, we did a lot of focus groups with students, and said that we would really like to enhance their experience talk- ing to faculty members. They all said that the interaction should be around food and drink. If you're nervous or unsure about an interaction, you want to be sitting there with a cup of cof- fee. We don't want them up on our residence foors, but we would love to have places where we can meet with them outside of our resi- dence hall, or in the food service. We were very conscious to be sure that the kinds of spaces that we were creating would enhance that kind of interaction. SHB: How have you added that in throughout campus? Calhoun: In the North Residential District Transformation project (NRDT) we knew that the interaction with faculty would be impor- tant and we knew that would most likely hap- pen over cofee or a meal. In the planning for NRDT we intentionally put the food service operations at the edge of the residential district to encourage the seamless transition from the academic core to the residential area. Faculty members are more comfortable walking across the street and having a cofee or food there, as opposed to going deeper into the residen- tial district. Those community spaces where students might interact with faculty or other groups of people from campus, we try to keep those on the perimeter. When we designed the program space in the residence halls, we creat- ed exterior entrances to the community spaces so that faculty or mentors did not have to go through the residence halls to get to the spaces. SHB: That's interesting. With the 3,872 new beds you are bringing online over the next two years, what are you doing diferently with those buildings to create modern projects? How did you design them diferently than a residence hall that would've been constructed in the 1970s, '90s or even a few years ago? Calhoun: The biggest change is in the com- munity space. We talk all the time about how, amazingly, 18-year-olds are not that much dif- ferent today than they were in 1960. One of the biggest diferences is their technology needs. Wireless being everywhere is important: out- side and inside. We laugh about that now trying to bring these buildings online. There are many things that these kids do not care about, but if you don't have the wireless up and going, that's going to be tragic. That's one of the main priorities. Group spaces on the ground foor; we have the technology there so that they can bring in their laptops, and wirelessly put it up on the screen for group discussions. They have all of that stuf right there at their fngertips. One of the things that is not changing is that we still are not building apartments for frst- or second-year students. We believe pretty strongly that community development for students and the whole social aspect of that is really important for them their frst, and even their second year. We're build- ing typical frst-year residence hall spaces. The diference for us is, frst year, you come in and you are sharing a double room and a bathroom with someone down the hall. It's a corridor bath, so it is the same architectural layout up on the foors as you had in 1960. A couple of diferences are privacy in the restrooms, which is very diferent now, with gender neutrality and gender inclusion needed. The shared bath has sinks in the main open area, but the toilets and showers are behind a door so that you can go in and have privacy. Students told us that they like the sinks in the open areas because if you're out in the open area doing your makeup, that's where your social interaction is. You're talking about where you're going tonight or what you're going to do. If you walk into the new buildings, the shared bathroom is located at the center of the building. At the ends of each foor are the suites. It is really important to us that we are not separating frst- and second-year students; we think it's important that second year students mentor frst year students. We wanted to be sure that students would want to stay in their frst year building their second year, and we also wanted to give them a rite of passage. We have three or four suites on both ends of the building, so frst year, you're living in the two-person rooms and sharing a bathroom with 40 other students, then the next year, you can come back and live on the same foor with the same people in a two- or three-bedroom suite with your own private living area and your own bathroom. It's diferent, but you have to walk through the frst-year students to get there, so you've still got that interaction. We are con- structing a total of 10 buildings; eight of them are residence halls, one is a ftness facility and one is a food service. SHB: Over how many years are those being constructed? Calhoun: Two years; they will open in two phases. This year we're opening 1,700 beds and next year we're opening an additional 1,700 beds. We started construction a year and a half ago. SHB: That's a huge construction project. Even on many large campuses, that's more than half the beds. Calhoun: It is a $371 million project; it's the largest project that we've ever done in housing. In student life, we also built the rec center and the student union in the last few years, but cer- tainly this housing project is the most aggres- sive construction project we've done. SHB " Whatever we're doing, the goal is how can we create an extraordinary student experience. From my perspective, it is asking, 'what is it about facilities and operations that enhances that student experience?' " It is really important to us that we are not separating frst- and second-year students; we think it's important that second year students mentor frst year students. We wanted to be sure that students would want to stay in their frst year building their second year, and we also wanted to give them a rite of passage.