What’s being dug on campus?

When we first came to school, we all saw and heard the same thing with collective confusion. Construction, fences, tractors, and massive piles of dirt that don’t make sense. Mallory Bedney, a student confused at the sight, explained that the construction was distracting.

“My curiosity gets peeked, and I wish that what was going on was public knowledge,” said Bedney.

Leatha Elsdon, the Director of Faculties Planning, Design, and Construction helped dissolve this confusion. Those huge piles of dirt will become the water filtration system for the Santos Manuel Student Union (SMSU) expansion. This will collect stormwater that must be captured by California law and the temporary classrooms will host underground utilities such as the sewer, water, electricity trenches, and power grid.

SMSU will be expanding into a three-story building directly north of the first SMSU building. The first level includes a pub with outdoor seating, a game room, eight-lane bowling alley, food vendors and retail space, dining and lounge space, and the campus bookstore. The second level will be a multipurpose conference level center with an order plaza and the third level will have administrative offices for the Associated Students Inc., student government, student success, cultural centers, and social space.

“The food options could include a new Coyote Pub, Habit Burger, a Mexican food concept, and potential for a different coffee space,” Elsdon said.

 The bookstore will be moving by the Center for Global Innovation Center with the Apple Store and the home delivery option getting expanded.

The deserted Anthropology Museum on the first floor of the Chemical Sciences building will be transformed into two new Anatomy teaching laboratory spaces with a mutual specimen storage space. These spaces will double the teaching size to 48 and the third floor of the Biological Sciences building, along with the mutual specimen storage room of the Anatomy lab will be adapted into a Graduate research laboratory.

Included features are mobile instrument benches, safety shower/eyewash, and accessible accommodations for a fume and hood sink to ensure equal access to learning and academic success. The fume hoods will ensure that Anatomy students can preserve their cadavers (a dead human body) in a proper manner.

The Center for Global Innovation (CGI) is a new classroom building, a 250 seat lecture hall, and an administration building that will feature a global gallery, an outdoor plaza for social gatherings and study areas and a retail food facility. In the center of campus, the CGI building provides direct access adjacent to Parking Lot N conveniently near the library and Student Union.

“There’s 24 classrooms total, 15 geared for extended learning, and 9 state classrooms. Three of the nine classrooms will be active learning which will include mobile furniture and small groups,” Elsdon explained. The classrooms can be used for certificate programs, summer classes, evening classes, and condensed classes.