Interim director of the Office of Residence Life, Joshua Lawrie, addressed Undergraduate Student Government at its meeting Monday, Feb. 12, talking extensively about updates within various University Residence Life programs.
Lawrie first provided an update on the upcoming demolition of Harshman Residence Hall. Fences will be going up around the building in early spring, the demolition scheduled to be completed by October 2018.
The Residence Life program will also be holding a housing reunion during Homecoming 2018, celebrating Harshman and on-campus housing with students and alumni. The University will also be selling bricks from Harshman to raise funds for scholarships.
“What will be there will be a nice piece of green space that will look into campus,” Lawrie said about future plans of the place Harshman is located. “I can tell you right now that there will not be a residence hall going in there.”
Lawrie continued by updating USG on the hiring search for a director of Residence Life. The University is continuing to use the national education hiring firm Spelman Johnson for consultation services, and the second and final rounds of interviews are scheduled for the middle of February. The new director will be named in March.
Next year, Residence Life will be helping establish three learning communities in different locations. The Air Force ROTC program will be moving into McDonald Hall and the Forensic Science learning community will be going into Offenhauer West. The Health, Wellness and You learning community will be moving into Kreischer Hall.
“Those are three new learning community options for the fall of 2018 that students can currently sign up for,” Lawrie said. “We have a lot of marketing going on for those.”
Additionally, he said the Office of Residence Life will be holding a consent program on Feb. 23. He added the University hopes to start a conversation among the student population about what defines consent.
USG also discussed:
· The final information session for USG elections. The final information session will be held Feb. 13 at 7:15 p.m. in 309 BTSU.
· An upcoming town hall meeting. The town hall meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. 308 BTSU on the subject of the campus and climate concerns. Some topics up for potential discussion include recycling, food insecurity and the University’s tobacco policy.
