For years, the rumor has circulated among incoming freshman that the residence halls on campus were planned and designed to mirror cells in Oregon’s prisons. While the rumor is as of yet unsubstantiated, it has persisted, and even The Princeton Review last rated the University’s residence halls as “dungeons.” But when the Review comes back to reassess the rating – and they see the new Living Learning Center complex – they might begin to change their minds and bring the University’s rating from the dungeon to the castle.
Kristine Jensen, an incoming freshman planning on majoring in journalism at the University, said she is hopeful to be among the first to call the LLC her home. Jensen will have to pay about $300 more for the LLC room than a standard one, but she said the socially and academically centered design fulfills a lot of her visions about the college life. Jensen applied to live in the LLC, and as of press time is still anxiously awaiting her assignment.
“It would be really cool to live in environment that will be beneficial to me academically, while also providing lots of opportunities for fun and social interaction,” Jensen said.
The LLC, named for its combination of housing and classrooms, is on schedule to be completed in time for the upcoming school year. It will be made up of two, four-story buildings separated by a grass-covered common area. According to the University Housing Web site, the buildings are intended to be complimentary of their neighboring buildings “architecturally and well as academically, and socially.”
In addition to housing nearly 400 students, the majority of whom will be incoming students taking part in Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs), it will have classrooms and academic-advising offices. The residents will have larger rooms than most on campus, with the double rooms at approximately 225 sq. ft., or slightly bigger than a Hummer H3.
The LLC will include a café for dining and an outside common area that will be used for additional café seating, as well as a hang-out spot.
The halls will be complete with a room called a performance hall. The concept behind this room is that it will be used for classes and presentations during the day, and will serve social functions for nights and weekends.
Mike Eyster, director of University Housing, is particularly excited about it.
“It has good lighting and other features that will be complimentary of the dances, and other performances that will take place there,” he said.
The project has been developing for about ten years, Eyster said. Site preparations for the building began in the summer of 2004; this consisted of tearing out the tennis and basketball courts and clearing out the area. Building began with a groundbreaking in January 2005.
“There were a lot of complicated decisions that had to be made in order to get a new building on campus and begin production,” Eyster said. “It looks like we’re on schedule to have everything finished by the time school starts this fall.”
Eyster said designing the buildings to combine the social and academic aspects of college is a logical choice.
“It makes a lot of sense,” Eyster said. “If we’re going to make a new residence hall it should be geared towards students achieving academic success.”
The LLC will be the first residence hall at the University to physically combine residence and academic, but the construction represents a recent trend spreading across the nation.
Tenaya Meaux, an assistant director of University Housing, said the rooms have been designed in a modern and contemporary style. She said they are noticeably different not only in size, but also in layout. Unlike the other residence halls all of the furniture in the LLC can be moved so students have a little more freedom to set the rooms up to their liking. Meaux said the designers tried to use students’ suggestions.
“All the things students’ wanted-bigger rooms, bigger windows-we tried to incorporate,” Meaux said.
Most of the rooms in the LLC have been designed as an enhanced double, and the prices will be equal to rooms similarly designed in the Walton and Earl Complexes albeit more expensive than standard rooms. They will be less expensive than rooms in H.P. Barnhart Hall, as they will not have sinks or bathrooms in each room.
“Our hope is that this is phase one in our plan to update and refurbish and renew some of the other residence halls on campus,” Meaux said.
Updating more rooms is still in the theoretical realm; No timetable exists for the planned refurbishing, and the Housing department does not plan to update every rooms, but the goal, Meaux said, remains clear: better dorms to attract future generations of students.