MEAGAN HALL

Campus Changes and Upgrades

08.24.17

OU students will have improved Wi-Fi and will see changes to academic buildings

Taylor Johnston / Digital Production Editor

With about 400 ongoing projects on campus, students can expect to see changes in technology and academic buildings when they come back from their summer vacations.

Ohio University’s Office of Information Technology plans to add 80 outdoor Wi-Fi coverage areas on the residential greens, starting with South Green and moving on to East and West Greens, Sean O’Malley, IT communications manager, said.

“This upgrade is meant to give students a more seamless internet experience as they move around,” he said in an email. “Adding the new coverage will cost approximately $40,000.”

Later in the year, most likely during the Spring Semester, students will also be able to start using devices such as wireless printers, streaming sticks and smart TVs in the residence halls, O’Malley said.

“At this point, we’re still working out the exact details, but we expect to spend around $150,000 to add this capability,” he said in an email.

According to students during Bobcat Student Orientation and recent move-in weekends, connecting those sorts of devices has been a top student IT concern, he said.

“The students spoke, and we listened,” O’Malley said in an email.

One of the main construction projects happening on campus is repairing the retaining wall that goes from McGuffey Hall, in front of Cutler Hall and over to Wilson Hall on College Green. The project costs about $250,000, Greg Robertson, the associate vice president for Architecture, Design and Construction, said.

The three buildings on College Green will receive window replacements, and Wilson Hall is receiving some repairs, such as paint for the roof, to its exterior, he said.

Robertson said each project started and will finish up at different times.

“The retaining wall project actually physically started construction the last week of June, and we are still planning to finish up before the students return,” he said. “The window replacements began last year. We hope to finish McGuffey before the students return but, … we don’t have the windows yet.”

Changes have also been made to several academic buildings.

“We have about 400 active projects right now,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of work throughout campus.”

Robertson said some of the bigger projects included updates to the Central Classroom Building, on West Union Street, the new Clippinger Laboratories building on South Green and Ellis Hall on College Green.

Katie Klann | FILE

Clippinger Laboratories houses the departments of Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Geography and Geological Science and has been on campus since 1965.

“(In) Central classroom, there's been several projects in that building from the anthropology lab to the C-Suite project,” Robertson said. “(The C-Suite) is the big thing that we are planning to do in central classroom.”

The new Clippinger building is currently in the design phase, and design work is being finished for the Ellis Hall renovation, which should be starting in the fall.

Additionally, smaller projects have been requested for different classrooms in buildings such Porter Hall and Walter Hall.

“For example, there were projects this summer just to get in and do refreshes in the classroom such as new carpet, paint, furniture (and) things like that,” Robertson said.

Development by: Taylor Johnston / Digital Production Editor