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Hashinger to get face lift

Residence hall to close doors next year

By By Eric Sorrentino (Contact)

Friday, February 25, 2005

The writing on the walls and hacky sack games that take place at the front of Hashinger Hall will stop this May, and won’t be back until the fall of 2006.

The hall will close for renovations the day after commencement, said Kip Grosshans, associate director for housing office administration.

The $12.6 million project will produce more public space for Hashinger residents. But the renovation allows for 375 student spaces, down from the current total of 460 student spaces this semester.

Grosshans said Hashinger had an average of 34 rentable spaces on floors four through eight. After renovations, Hashinger will have an average of 31 rentable spaces.

Potential overcrowding in residences halls may be avoided by students who choose not to live on Daisy Hill during renovations.

“I plan on living off campus next year because I wouldn’t live anywhere else on Daisy Hill except Hash,” said Stephanie West, Girard freshman and Hashinger resident.

West said Hashinger could use renovations, but would not be as creative a residence hall as it used to be.

“It’s a bit dirty, but it feels a lot homier than any of the other dorms,” West said. “The other dorms remind me of hospitals.”

So how is Student Housing going to deal with the 3,000 freshmen that live in the residence halls without Hashinger?

Diana Robertson, associate director of Student Housing, said the department issued 350 Intent-to-Return cards to upperclassmen at the beginning of the semester who wanted to return to the residence halls. The cards guarantee upperclassmen a space in the halls.

Robertson also said Student Housing created “Home Away from Hash,” a program that would house students who wanted to live in Hashinger in one or two floors of McCollum Hall next fall. She said the students who chose this program would have priority to live in the renovated Hashinger.

Contracts would not be issued to students interested in living in Hashinger until the spring of 2006.

Grosshans said the renovated Hashinger would have a food service area on the south wing of the second floor, as well as a coffee house for open mic nights. E’s Express would be separate, but still available for students to order food to-go.

Ken Stoner, director of Student Housing, said the theater on the third level would be expanded. The theater is now 63.6 feet wide, but will be about 90 feet wide after renovations.

Grosshans said there would be a new entrance with a staircase that led to outside the front of the building. He said a new stairway would comply with the fire marshal’s requirement that a stairwell must exit to outside the building. Hashinger was not originally built this way in 1962.

Despite the loss of 85 student spaces and the writing on the walls after renovations, Grosshans said the focus of the building would still be on the creative arts.

“It’s the students that ultimately matter,” he said. “If that’s their focus and that’s what they want, that’s what will happen.”

Grosshans said that since Templin, Lewis and Ellsworth were renovated, it made sense for Hashinger to be next. He said GSP would likely be the next residence hall renovated after Hashinger.

— Edited by Kendall Dix

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