Keeping with its recent trend of expansion, Elon has taken on 10 new construction projects since the end of Spring semester. At that time construction began on the Colonnades dining and residence halls, two new academic pavilions, a new security building near the Oaks and renovations and updates in many of the older buildings on campus.

“We’re still at the high water mark [of construction],” said Neil Bromilow, director of construction management at Elon. “Last summer was a high water mark with the law school and business school and the Oaks housing all starting up, so we’re still running at a high level, higher than normal.”

The senior staff makes the new construction decisions based on the academic requirements and institutional priorities for the school.

Construction on residence halls A and B of the Colonnades began at the beginning of August and details like painting and planting grass are not yet complete. The Colonnades dining hall will be finished in early September, so students in that area will continue to eat in Danieley Center Commons.

The reason for more dormitories and dining halls, said Bromilow, is naturally that there are more students to house. We haven’t added that many more students to the student body, but Bromilow said it’s a philosophic issue. It’s an institutional priority at Elon to have more students living on campus than in “apartmentland.”

“Students study harder and do better and graduate if they’re on campus and in the environment of learning,” Bromilow said.

So why build more residence halls when the number of students enrolled hasn’t grown excessively? With a little more than 5,000 students enrolled at Elon, on-campus housing only has about 3,000 beds. This means that the other students couldn’t live on campus if they wanted to.

Alamance building has undergone extensive renovations on the second and third floors and the building now have an elevator. All of the classrooms on those floors now have new movie screens and speaker systems, furniture, paint and carpet. The building can now appropriately house a wider variety of classes and has more usable classrooms. All of the windows in the building are now energy efficient, in response to the campus sustainability plan.

“Instead of building something, fix up what you have- that’s sustainable isn’t it?” Bromilow said. “Recycling, but making more efficient and more usable.”

Academic pavilions number 4 and 5, Religious Studies and Philosophy and Teaching and Learning, respectively, were built predominantly to house offices for faculty, who moved into the buildings after graduation.

Another institutional priority of Elon’s is to decrease the number of part-time faculty. With more faculty becoming full-time, they need office space and classrooms, and the two new pavilions were built to house them.

The trek from the Oaks to Elon West is now much more secure, with a new sidewalk complete with lights, banners and security cameras in place of the tram path that was there.

The Pendulum office will now be located in the old bank building on Williamson Avenue. Demolition of the drive-through began around the beginning of August and after a few more renovations Elon’s student newspaper will be ready to move in.

Smaller projects include new carpets and paint in the Whitley auditorium offices, architectural and cosmetic improvements on the Center of the Arts, such as replaced glass in the skylights, various woodwork improvements and the doubling of the number of women’s toilets in the bathrooms.

News Editor: Katilin Ugolik - 08/24/07