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Dining Hall Certified Just in Time
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2004 -- The day the students left last spring, crews began gutting the 50-year-old kitchen in Wadsworth Hall. And the day before they came back this fall, the health inspector signed the OK that signaled the start of cooking season.
This brand-new, finished-just-in-time dining room may be the flagship of Wads' ongoing $31-million renovation.
The serving area feels like an airport food court, minus the flashy advertising but with more choices. Residents can fill their trays up with pizza, burgers and fries, a salad bar, pasta, a dessert bar and homestyle entrees, plus make-your-own waffles, subs, stir-fries, and the ever-popular cold cereal bar.
Then, instead of long, brown, institutional tables reminiscent of "Cool Hand Luke," the dining room is furnished with restaurant-style seating.
The cafeteria was pretty good before, but nothing like this. "I'd like to invite anyone who's ever been here to stop by for a visit," says John Rovano, director of residential services.
The changes you can't see may be even more impressive.
"We're bringing Wads into the 21st century," Rovano says. In 1964, the only electric device a student was likely to bring to college was a clock radio "or an electric razor, if they were really affluent," he remembers.
Now, computers, video games and microwaves are commonplace. "We had four rooms on a circuit and power strips on every outlet," Rovano says. "People could lose data when the guy next door turned on a popcorn maker."
Wiring wasn't the only weakness. Plumbing half a century old was showing its age, and the room furniture, built to survive a nuclear attack, was nevertheless sporting scars left by generations of Tech students.
In addition, wheelchair access wasn't convenient, and the university wanted to install sprinklers for fire protection.
Since the hall was going to be massively torn up for electrical, plumbing and life-safety renovations, staff decided now was the time to address those quality-of-life upgrades they'd been dreaming about. "Fifty percent of what we've done we had to do," Rovano said. "The rest we firmly believe appeals to the students and are an important aspect of recruitment and retention."
Rooms for about 520 students have been remodeled. Space for another 150 or so will be completed at the end of the semester, with the last block of rooms scheduled to be finished next summer. Though not exactly spacious, the new rooms and their furniture provide a far more efficient use of the available square footage.
The new hallways are bright and welcoming, almost sunny. Rovano walks down one to what may be his favorite part of the whole project, a student lounge done up in vibrant, retro hues with a fully equipped kitchen. It was designed to give residents an inviting, accessible area to study, visit, cook or just get out of their rooms. "You can play with your computer, make popcorn or bake a cake here," he says. Once the remodeling is complete, in August 2005, 18 of these getaways will be sprinkled throughout Wadsworth. "I love these lounges," Rovano confides. "I want students to feel this is their space, their living room."
In terms of private space, the new restrooms probably represent the biggest change in dorm living. While you can still enjoy the thrill of communal showering and tooth-brushing with friends, you can also find that rarest of commodities in dorm living: privacy. In every new lavatory are several small, private bathrooms, each with a shower, toilet and sink, and each with a lockable door.
The goal of all these improvements is straightforward: to make Wadsworth Hall a more desirable place to live. Many students have their own bathrooms at home, to say nothing of their own bedrooms, and Michigan Tech must take that into account.
"On-campus housing is the second most important issue for students when it comes to choosing a university," Rovano said. "And their parents too take a big interest in what we're doing on this side of the street."
Is it working? Of the 390 new beds available to returning students, all but 22 were reserved by 2003-04 residents. "They said, 'I want to stay on campus, and I want to stay in Wads,'" Rovano said. "We've accomplished what we hoped."
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