Riley Nelson

The renovation of Sills Hall, which began over a year ago, is set to be completed at the end of the semester. The project began over winter break last year and was initially detailed in the 2017 campus development plan. The overall goals for renovation include bringing in more natural light to the building, improving accessibility and creating flexible classrooms.

Director of Capital Projects John Simoneau wrote in an email to the Orient that Sills will open for faculty to move in on May 21 and June 17, and classes will be held in the building starting in the fall. This is consistent with the initial expected timeline of the project.

The two moving dates were offered because some faculty wanted increased flexibility around graduation. The departments that are set to be housed in Sills are classics, German, cinema studies, Francophone studies and Italian studies. Moving crews will help faculty transfer their materials from their temporary residence in Dudley Coe to the renovated Sills Hall prior to Dudley Coe’s upcoming demolition.

In the upcoming weeks, faculty will gather for a discussion regarding the new building, followed by a tour scheduled during finals. This tour will provide an opportunity for faculty to look at the new classrooms before they go through the process of requesting spaces for the upcoming fall semester.

The remaining components of the renovation include finishes and flooring as well as electrical, heating and cooling systems. After these final touches, the project will conclude with exterior renovations like the installation of pavement and lawns.

Of the many changes to the building, faculty are particularly looking forward to the newly opened basement. This will allow students and faculty to mingle in a new common area. Associate Professor of Classics Jennifer Kosak, one of the faculty members relocated from Sills to Dudley Coe, spoke about this change.

“The basement will be opened up and much lighter,… so I’m very excited that that is going to be open. And it’s also going to be open as an area for a plaza, for students to be able to come in and out of,” Kosak said. “I think that will be a really nice feature to the building.”

The updated space will also no longer have any faculty offices in the basement. Instead, they will all be located on the first and top floors of the building. The classics department will move from the basement to the first floor, where it will coexist with the cinema studies and German departments. The top floor will host the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. All these floors will be accessible through the addition of an elevator near the building’s entrance.

The building’s renovation took into consideration feedback and requests from dialogue between faculty, administration and construction management. This included faculty input in choosing furniture and offices.

“There’s a team of people in the administration. It includes Sharon Ames and Mike Ranen, and the top-point people on the building. [They] have been helping us out in particular,… and there’s been a committee of faculty as well over the past couple of years to take desires of the faculty and what people want to see in there,” Kosak said.

While the timeline for student visits to Sills before its official opening remains unclear, the building is set to be functional by the fall, and Cleaveland Quad will no longer be fenced off. Come next semester, the renovated area will be complete and open for use by the entire campus community.

Editor’s note on April 25 at 11:30 a.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Mike Green as one of the administrators who provided feedback on the renovations. The individual was actually Mike Ranen.