Papadakis Announces Renovations
Jason Hand
Issue date: 10/27/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
University President Constantine Papadakis answered students' questions and concerns about on-campus housing during a town hall meeting held in the ground floor study center of Kelly Hall Oct. 24. Rita LaRue, senior associate vice president for Student Life and Administrative Services and Adele Barbato, senior vice president for Human Resources were also present at the meeting.
"All this started last year," Papadakis said in his introduction, "because we hired a consulting firm to help us figure out what was the opinion and the engagement of the students."
Papadakis turned the meeting over to the students in attendance and gave them an opportunity to ask questions.
David Pulauski, a freshman majoring in psychology, asked the first question, regarding the status of the Race Street residential hall and whether students will move in during spring term.
"The Race dormitory is actually on schedule," Papadakis said. "It will finish in March 2007, and that will allow us to move all the residents from your dormitory to the new one and remodel this dorm in a major way, and be ready with a refurbished dorm here by September 2007. So, the plan is still intact; we believe that will give us ample time to make this happen, and we will have a much better situation next year because we are going to have 500 more beds available for our students when they come in September. The Race dorm will also be like North Hall and East Hall, with suite arrangements for the students."
Papadakis also said that two more residence halls are in the works, but the administration has not decided where to build them. The new dorms should be finished by 2010 and will accommodate about 1,000 students.
Services will be available to assist the students in moving from Kelly Hall to the Race Street dormitories.
LaRue said that four people will be assigned to a suite in the new dorm and that the Office of University Housing would work to match students with their friends who reside in Kelly Hall. "We will do our very best. We will have a whole process that will start sometime early- to mid-winter quarter," she said.
At the meeting, Papadakis also addressed the University's diversity; he emphasized that the University has always been serious about recruiting minorities, and that eight percent of the student population is black while three percent are Hispanic.
"We have all kinds of recruitment programs that we use during the summer to bring minorities to Drexel and expose them to what we offer, and make certain that we can then support them when they come and enroll," said Papadakis.
"I really enjoyed it," said Pulauski at the end of the meeting. "It is a good chance for us to get out and talk to Papadakis. It is not something we get to do every single day. It is good that he is willing to do something like that because he wants to hear what the students have to say."
"All this started last year," Papadakis said in his introduction, "because we hired a consulting firm to help us figure out what was the opinion and the engagement of the students."
Papadakis turned the meeting over to the students in attendance and gave them an opportunity to ask questions.
David Pulauski, a freshman majoring in psychology, asked the first question, regarding the status of the Race Street residential hall and whether students will move in during spring term.
"The Race dormitory is actually on schedule," Papadakis said. "It will finish in March 2007, and that will allow us to move all the residents from your dormitory to the new one and remodel this dorm in a major way, and be ready with a refurbished dorm here by September 2007. So, the plan is still intact; we believe that will give us ample time to make this happen, and we will have a much better situation next year because we are going to have 500 more beds available for our students when they come in September. The Race dorm will also be like North Hall and East Hall, with suite arrangements for the students."
Papadakis also said that two more residence halls are in the works, but the administration has not decided where to build them. The new dorms should be finished by 2010 and will accommodate about 1,000 students.
Services will be available to assist the students in moving from Kelly Hall to the Race Street dormitories.
LaRue said that four people will be assigned to a suite in the new dorm and that the Office of University Housing would work to match students with their friends who reside in Kelly Hall. "We will do our very best. We will have a whole process that will start sometime early- to mid-winter quarter," she said.
At the meeting, Papadakis also addressed the University's diversity; he emphasized that the University has always been serious about recruiting minorities, and that eight percent of the student population is black while three percent are Hispanic.
"We have all kinds of recruitment programs that we use during the summer to bring minorities to Drexel and expose them to what we offer, and make certain that we can then support them when they come and enroll," said Papadakis.
"I really enjoyed it," said Pulauski at the end of the meeting. "It is a good chance for us to get out and talk to Papadakis. It is not something we get to do every single day. It is good that he is willing to do something like that because he wants to hear what the students have to say."
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