April 29, 2016
From the VP for administration and finance: 2016 Space Migration Planning Project outcomes
The 2016 Space Migration Planning Project was announced last fall. President Schulz has approved the Space Migration Work Group's space reallocation recommendations. This space wouldn't have been available without the construction of new space on campus in Engineering Hall and the new College of Business Administration building.
First, I want to inform you of a decision President Schulz made to honor a commitment made by the previous central administration in 2002. The English department will consolidate into the English/Counseling Services Building, and Counseling Services will relocate to the Lafene/Mercy building. Working with staff from English, Counseling Services, Student Life and the Division of Facilities, we were able to develop a solution that benefits both departments and our students. The English department will consolidate faculty into a single building and Counseling Services will gain additional space by relocating to Lafene/Mercy, which will be utilized for new programs that would not be possible in their current space.
I was pleased with the number of thoughtful proposals submitted from the campus community. The Space Migration Work Group reviewed 30 concept proposals, narrowing the selection to 19. During the past several months, the group worked diligently to select the proposals that best utilized the spaces being vacated in the Ahearn Gymnasium, Kedzie Hall, Leasure Hall, Anderson Hall, Waters Hall, Eisenhower Hall, the former Foundation Tower and Lafene/Mercy.
Listed below are the successful proposals by building:
• Ahearn Gymnasium — The kinesiology department will expand and reorganize in the Ahearn Gymnasium to provide additional graduate teaching assistant offices and a central location for doctoral students (Proposal 02).
• Kedzie Hall — The A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications will utilize space in Kedzie Hall as a multipurpose space to host collaborative research sessions, graduate seminar classes and meetings (Proposal 28).
• Leasure Hall — Leasure Hall will house the newly created Applied Mathematics Center and provide additional space for Mathematics faculty offices and the Chapman Center for Rural Studies (Proposal 29).
• Anderson Hall — Four proposals requesting space in Anderson Hall were accepted. Space in the basement will be utilized by the Office of the Registrar (Proposal 13) and the Center for Research and Innovation in STEM education (Proposal 26). The Teaching and Learning Center will relocate from Wildcat Landing to the second floor (Proposal 16), which will save the university approximately $30,000 per year in rent and utilities and will put the center in a central, easily accessible location. The second floor will also house an administrative services unit that will consolidate financial functions currently performed within each Division of Administration and Finance department (Proposal 25).
• Waters Hall — Five College of Agriculture and K-State Research and Extension departments — agricultural economics, entomology, Proposal Services, Environmental Health and Safety and international programs — will expand and reorganize in Waters Hall to create more collaborative, efficient groupings (Proposal 08).
• Eisenhower Hall — Eisenhower Hall will become the new home of the Graduate School and allows for the consolidation of the modern languages department (Joint Proposal 11 and 27). There is little need for renovations, and the plan maintains existing classroom space, provides much needed space for graduate students and creates several shared collaboration spaces for students and faculty to utilize.
• Former Foundation Tower — Information Technology Services will expand to the fourth floor to develop synergies and remove communication barriers (Proposal 23). The second floor, which was awarded to Information Technology Services during the first phase of space migration, will become available again during the next space migration process.
• Lafene/Mercy — As previously mentioned, Counseling Services will relocate from the English/Counseling Services Building to the first floor. Four proposals requesting space in Lafene/Mercy were accepted. Remaining space on the first floor will be used to expand the food, nutrition, dietetics and health department's athletic training program (Proposal 22) and provide some storage for Network and Telecommunication Services (Proposal 24). The Lafene Health Center will expand and relocate four departments on the second floor (Proposal 05) and the Physical Activity and Nutrition-Clinical Research Consortium will expand on the third floor (Proposal 15).
Read additional information about the selected projects.
A third round of space migration planning will likely be initiated in fall 2016 to reallocate spaces being vacated as a result of the current space migration project. Additional details will be provided at a later date. In addition, the Division of Facilities is finalizing a process to rename buildings the university has acquired or repurposed such as the former Foundation Tower, Lafene/Mercy and the English/Counseling Services Building. I want to thank the Space Migration Work Group members for their time and thoughtful input during this process. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact Heather Mills, hlmills@k-state.edu; Ryan Swanson, rswanson@k-state.edu; or me, cab@k-state.edu.
Sincerely,
Cindy Bontrager
Vice President for Administration and Finance