New Campus Banners Highlight Investment in Academic Facilities

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – In light of extensive construction and renovation occurring on campus, the University of Arkansas today placed banners at key construction sites as a reminder of the significant and coordinated efforts to improve the university’s academic facilities.

The 15-foot-long red and white banners read "Building.Smart." followed by "Enhancing our centers of learning." The banners also feature the university logo.

"We have over $96 million in improvements to academic facilities currently under way on campus," said John Diamond, associate vice chancellor of university relations. "A significant percentage of these enhancements is being funded by our students through the campus facilities fee. We felt it was important for them to see and realize the enormous impact they are having, and will continue to have, on the university's academic quality. The banners also help remind the campus community and visitors that the construction is a temporary inconvenience. When the work is completed these buildings will support the university's teaching, research and learning mission for decades to come."

Funding for the projects also comes from private donations and foundations, government grants and appropriations. Five academic buildings are being built, renovated or expanded at this time on campus.

The largest project is the $36.6 million renovation and expansion of Vol Walker Hall. The building was the original University of Arkansas library, and was completed in 1935. What is now the Fay Jones School of Architecture moved into Vol Walker Hall in 1968, but the school has long since outgrown its building. The renovation will add classroom, studio and office space to the building, at an estimated cost of $19.8 million. A new addition will provide 34,320 square feet of space for a new design center, at an estimated cost of $16.8 million. The addition is made possible by a $10 million gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. It will be named in honor of the foundation’s president, Steven L. Anderson, an architecture alumnus.

When the entire project is finished in 2013, the entire Fay Jones School of Architecture – the departments of architecture and landscape architecture and the interior design program – will be in one building for the first time. The new building will also provide the space necessary for the school to fulfill its plans to increase enrollment by 20 percent in the coming years.

A second major project in the central core of the campus is the $27.1 million renovation and expansion of historic Ozark Hall, which is also scheduled to be finished in 2013. The building, which dates back to 1940, will be updated to create a fully accessible, energy-efficient home for the Graduate School and International Education, and the department of geosciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The south wing of the building will get a 21,000-square-foot addition that will include a 275-seat auditorium. The new addition will also provide a permanent home for the Honors College, putting its full staff in one building for the first time.

This project is being funded in part by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation and with bond money supported by the student facility fee.

The Eleanor Mann School of Nursing is also currently located in Ozark Hall. In January it will move into the new Epley Center for Health Professions, which is still under construction on the site of the former university Health Center. The 45,000-square-foot building will also house the communication disorders program, which is also a part of the College of Education and Health Professions.

The Epley Center will have new classrooms, labs and state of the art equipment for nursing students, providing a large enough facility to double the enrollment in the School of Nursing. The communication disorders program will also be able to expand, both in its enrollment and in the number of people it can serve. The current Speech and Hearing Clinic on campus will be replaced by a more modern facility featuring an audiology suite, therapy rooms for children and adults, a family assessment room and an augmentative communication center to serve the needs of children and adults who must use technology to communicate.

The building is named in honor of Lewis Epley, a former University of Arkansas trustee, and his wife, Donna, who made a substantial gift toward its construction. The total cost of the building is $10.84 million.

Two of the construction projects currently under way involve two completely new buildings – the Hillside Auditorium and the Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center.

Hillside Auditorium, located in the campus core, will replace the old Science Engineering Auditorium, which had a capacity of 372 seats, and the former Geology Building, both of which were in poor condition and could not be economically renovated. The Hillside Auditorium will be a new multi-level building and provide students with two auditoriums of 488 seats and 272 seats each. The building will also feature a living “green” roof. The estimated cost of the building is $13 million, which is being funded from bonds supported by the student facility fee.

The Jean Tyson Child Development Study Center is under construction on the north side of campus and will provide a single location for the Infant Development Center and the Nursery School, both a part of the School of Human Environmental Sciences in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. The new center will be a modern learning facility, with classrooms, indoor and outdoor play spaces and an observation room. The center will meet the educational and research needs of the increasing number of students majoring in human development, family sciences and rural sociology, while also providing high-quality childcare for more than 140 families from the campus and community.

The total cost of the center is estimated at $8.5 million. A lead gift of $2.5 million by the Tyson Family Foundation and the Tyson Foods Foundation and an additional $500,000 gift from Mark Rumsey, president and chief executive officer of Zero Mountain Inc., were instrumental in making the dream of this facility a reality.

In addition to the banners now on display, the office of university relations has prepared a walking map of the campus for students, “You Can Get There From Here” which shows the best ways to get around the various construction projects to get to class on time. For details, see the detour map.