Campus Concept Minutes

For 10-23-00

Dave King was not able to attend the meeting so Sara Varhus acted as Chair.

At our meeting on the 30th of October, the Committee will discuss the Supplemental Improvements List.

A meeting of the Landscape/Signage Committees was held on October 18^th. A near final draft of the Interior Signage Manual of Campus Standards designed by Holt Architects was distributed. The final report will reside with George Stooks and Tom Simmons. Campus personnel will be able to use schematics and standards from this manual to order signs for their departments. Trowbridge & Wolf Landscape Architects and Planners distributed an updated draft of the Campus Landscape Plan. Trowbridge & Wolf discussed the recommendations made by the Campus Concept Committee regarding the pedestrian spine and the closing of Takamine Street and portions of Centennial. Trowbridge & Wolf recommended leaving Takamine open from Sheldon Avenue to the entrance of the Sheldon parking lot and then combining the Snygg and Sheldon lots. The entrance/exit from the Snygg lot to/from Washington Boulevard could be made an exit only to reduce the through traffic. Several CCC committee members expressed their concern about this latter recommendation. Craig Graci recommended that CCC members be given copies of the Landscape/Signage reports prior to the meeting where the final reports are discussed. Trowbridge & Wolf also recommended that the campus hire a traffic consultant to assess the campus, particularly with regard to building the new Campus Center.

The proposal regarding space needs for the Science and Mathematics Departments was discussed. The proposal emphasizes a shared programmatic vision for the sciences and a desire to locate Biology and Earth Sciences under the same roof with other departments in the subdivision. Al Lackey stated that because these departments are currently in different buildings, students don't see the continuity between the disciplines and faculty find it hard to collaborate and share resources. To achieve this configuration, the sciences are recommending building a new wing onto Snygg hall. Dave Sargent asked if those who drafted the proposal had looked at other models where science departments are housed under one roof. Some campuses use a more decentralized approach. Al responded that, for undergraduate needs, schools make more use of a centralized rather than decentralized approach. Larger programs that have graduate programs tend to use the decentralized model.

Craig Graci noted that the Computer Science Department's portion of the proposal was more modest than that of Biology and Earth Sciences. CS merely wants to reconfigure their space to showcase their equipment, labs and the work that is going on there. CS would not want to wait for a full building renovation before their portion of the proposal could be achieved. The Committee agreed and Sara mentioned that some work toward the CS renovation is already underway.

It was noted that large renovations like the Sciences are proposing generally begin with a mission statement. Al agreed that it would be appropriate for the science departments to create a combined mission statement. There will be more discussion about this proposal at the next CCC meeting.

Chris Hebblethwaite