Two UAF Buildings Re-Open With Renovations
By Zeke Shomler
This past month, two long-awaited renovation projects have been completed at UAF: the new Student Success Center on the top floor of the Rasmuson Library and Bartlett Residence Hall. These building updates provide significant improvements for students on campus. I was lucky enough to get a tour of both new spaces, and I’m here to share the details!
Student Success Center
The Student Success Center (SSC) is a brand-new addition to UAF. Taking up the entire sixth floor of the Rasmuson Library, the bright and open space is now home to tutoring services, advising, and testing. It features various study spaces and other support services, including counseling, financial aid advising, and a family room.
You’ll enter a bright and open space that Jen Tilbury, SSC director and Associate Vice Provost for Student Success, describes as a “one-stop for students” and “a student success machine.” Large windows along the south-facing walls let in as much light as winter can offer and a view of the Alaska range. To the left, you’ll see glass-walled tutoring centers and open study spaces, with advising just beyond; to the right, you’ll see study cubicles and a family room; and directly in front of you are the friendly staff of the SSC front desk.
Over four years in the making, the Student Success Center is designed with flexibility and student needs at the forefront. Suppose you come up to get some work done. In that case, you have options everywhere, from individual cubicles and reservable quiet rooms to armchairs, booths, and nooks, collaborative open workspaces (with ample whiteboards!), and bookable conference rooms. The whole sixth floor is even color-coded to help differentiate the different ways to use it; all study areas, for example, are decorated on the carpet, ceiling, and seating with blue.
A view of the Student Success Center on the 6th floor of the Rasmuson Library
Photo by Manuel A. Melendez
Tutoring spaces are decked in green, signaling how they’ll help you grow as a learner. The Math & Stat Lab offers help to any students enrolled in lower-division MATH or STAT classes at UAF, with in-person and Zoom appointments and drop-in tutoring.
The Writing Center is open to all students and community members at any level or stage of the writing process. They also offer in-person and Zoom appointments and drop-ins on the sixth floor and help by phone or email for those needing it.
The Communication Center offers in-person and virtual appointments for all communication-related needs, including speeches, interviews, presentations, and coaching. They also have a one-touch video recording room; simply close the door press record, and you can review your speech or presentation and ensure you’re prepared.
Tucked away beyond the tutoring centers, you’ll find the advising center and career services cloaked in a warm maroon. Here, students can chat with an academic advisor and get the advice and assistance needed for their educational success. A career closet with professional clothing and personal hygiene products is there to help students succeed. There’s even a satellite office for Financial Aid advising and a mental health counselor on the floor from Student Health and Counseling, so students don’t have to go elsewhere after referrals or when they’re already in the center.
Close by in the northeast corner, draped in orange, is the Testing Center, which offers proctoring for course exams, placement tests, and other testing services. They also have several ADA-compliant, distraction-free testing rooms to help meet student needs.
One exciting new addition to campus at the SSC is the Family Room. This space is designed to help meet the needs of students with small children, offering a place to keep their kids with them as they study and balance both roles of student and parent. There’s even a lactation space with a refrigerator. This new addition reflects the diversity of the student population here at UAF, showing students that they can show up with their whole selves and find acceptance here. There’s space for everyone!
Speaking of space, the openness of the SSC, with its prevalence of glass and substantial south-facing windows, is remarkable. Anyone who’s spent at least one winter in Alaska knows that the winter darkness is no joke. Designed to maximize the amount of natural light during the dark winter months, the north side of the floor will allow the low December sun to reach all the way back. Jen Tilbury remarked, “I think in the winter, it’s gonna be a game-changer.”
It’s almost a different world in the SSC–the floor is nearly unrecognizable as the former home to rows and rows of gold-toned wooden bookshelves. While some part of me will always miss the sixth floor of Jill Osier’s poem “Elegy,” this new space looks forward to a modernized experience for the whole of the UAF population. Owen Guthrie, UAF’s Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, explains it’s about “including students who weren’t traditionally attending higher education.”
UAF is unique in its high average student age, high number of first-generation students, and incredible diversity in its student population. With this space and the ongoing efforts to modernize the student experience, the administration hopes to foster a community-oriented mindset that encourages asking for help when needed. Jen Tilbury said, “It’s about relationships at every level.”
Bartlett Hall
After a modernizing upgrade, Bartlett Resident Hall reopened just down Yukon Drive from the Rasmuson Library. Home primarily to first-year housing, the building now boasts a modern central kitchen and upgraded rooms. In just 14 months of construction work, the building was reimagined with students in mind.
The kitchen on the first floor features two stoves, two microwaves, and a large stainless steel sink. Just beyond, you’ll find the laundry room with two regular and five heavy-duty washing machines, two regular and five large steam dryers, and a utility sink. It’s free for residents to use—no quarters required.
Before the renovations, as Director of Residence Life Teddi Walker explained, the laundry room was down in the basement, and the kitchen was tucked away inconveniently into the corner. The space needed an upgrade; Teddi said the old kitchen was more like “a very dark, dungeon-y lounge.” The new, bright, central combined kitchen and laundry provide a more community-oriented space for students to thrive.
The dorm rooms, too, received a modernizing upgrade. One new student, Grayson L., was kind enough to show us the new room he now shares with a roommate. The room looks comfortable and flexible with beds that move and bunk without tools, a fold-down table, and sleek new storage spaces. There are two shades on the windows: one that is slightly sheer for when you want some privacy but a little natural light and a set of blackout curtains for those extra-long summer days. “At first, I was a little nervous,” said Grayson about moving into Bartlett, “but I’m very pleased with how it ended up looking.”
I also got a peek into the new bathroom space down the hall. Inside, floor-to-ceiling stall doors separate individual toilet and shower stalls, including two fully accessible combined rooms, one on each side. The shared sink space is at the center of the room, with improved counter space and plug-ins. Instead of being separated by gender, the bathrooms in Bartlett all use this kind of hybrid communal/individual bathroom design.
An ADA full-bathroom stall in Bartlett
Photo by Manuel A. Melendez
As Teddi Walker explained, these bathrooms are created with Universal Design in mind, a framework that aims to make space accessible for everyone without the need for special accommodations. Hopefully, anyone can use this bathroom and feel comfortable, including those with sensory needs, physical limitations, or whose gender doesn’t fit into the outdated male/female bathroom binary.
For anyone worried about safety in a shared bathroom space, Teddi assured me there’s no need to be concerned. The lack of separation probably makes the space safer than a gender-segregated bathroom because there’s less chance of isolation. “Come see it,” says Teddi to anyone uneasy about the design. “It’s essentially a series of individual private rooms.”
This inclusive bathroom design is used on all eight floors of Bartlett, as well as in the Student Success Center. It goes to show how forward-thinking and well-planned these new spaces are.
As a final note, thank you to Teddi Walker, Jen Tilbury, and Grayson L. for donating your time to make this tour possible.