An elevator was also installed in Asbury Hall. NATALIA COSTARD / THE DEPAUW
Hardhats, construction workers and chainlink fences greeted Professor of English, Andrea Sununu every time she left her office this summer.
During the break from classes, Professor Sununu stayed in her office late into the night in Asbury Hall, despite the ongoing construction. Staff were emailed about the accessibility of some of the doors in the building due to construction, but Sununu did not realize this change might cause difficulties for her.
“Once all five doors were closed and one of the workman kindly said, follow me, and all around this building there was one of those fences and he moved the fence apart, so I could go through,” said Sununu.
Since the end of commencement, Sununu has seen the workers around both her office and across all of Holton quad.
“They had a lot of work to do, and they worked really, really hard,” said Sununu, “They worked on Saturday and Sunday, and one of the nice workman said to me, ‘well, we are doing the best we can, we need to be ready for when the students show up.’”
Campus construction, not including Hoover Hall, has been divided into two main projects; Asbury Hall and the lawn surrounding East College. The leaking Asbury roof was the first thing to be fixed this summer to ensure the building is water-tight.
“The first phase is addressing the exterior envelope of the building, so that’s the roof, the brickwork, doors and windows,” said Associate Vice President for Facilities Management, Richard Vance, “It was built in 1929, so it’s almost been a hundred years.”
In addition to work on the roof of Asbury, facilities was required to ensure that the building was compliant with the American Disabilities Act (ADA). This meant the installation of an elevator. “Asbury now has elevator like most of the other buildings on campus,” said Vance.
Although the updates and repairs took all summer, construction on the building is complete for the time being. “We got it done just in the nick of time before students and faculty came back,” said Vance.
However, there are plans to continue working on Asbury Hall starting next summer. Currently in the planning phase, facilities hopes to change the interior of Asbury in order to make it more class-appropriate. They also plan to work on the floors and walls of the building. “The exterior was tired, the interior is also tired,” said Vance, “And we’ve just, I don't like this word, but we’ve just not paid attention to Asbury, so it was it’s time.”
In addition to the work on Asbury Hall, the University has also been installing an irrigation system on East College lawn so it can be watered automatically.
Along with the irrigation system there have been improvements made to certain sidewalks surrounding East College.These changes were made “so it's more efficient and perhaps more in keeping with the academic core,” Vance said.
There has also been work done to the East College building itself, similar to what was done in Asbury. “The building was suffering from moisture infrastructure,” said Vance. Facilities put a drainage system in to remove water and improve the draining.” The work should be completed in a week.
While there are plans to improve Holton Quad further, these plans will not be put into motion for a few years. “I think there is a desire to take a pause, assess what we have accomplished,” said Vance.
While construction might seem good for the University, some students feel it changes the atmosphere too much. “I think it’s amazing, raising ADA standards in Asbury by putting in an elevator for differently abled people, but that is not all of the construction, so they’re just doing everything at the same time which makes campus look off-putting to me,” said sophomore Joshua Selke, “It’s a mess.”
Other students worry about when the construction will be completely finished. “Some of the estimates put [construction] not all done until we graduate,” said sophomore, Kiara Goodwine, “So most of my time here will be filled with construction.”