Clanging hammers and whirring drills, detours and fenced-off areas: All have become mainstays throughout the 5Cs as the colleges undertake a variety of major construction projects.
Pomona College is managing two construction projects on opposite ends of its campus. Next to Seaver Theatre on South Campus, the new studio art center is nearing completion. According to associate professor of art Mark Allen, the project is on
schedule, and professors plan on teaching in the new building in the fall.
Construction is also underway on the new Millikan
Laboratory, which is located at the intersection of Sixth Street and College Avenue and will house the mathematics department and the physics and astronomy department.
“I’m stoked for the new building—amazing classrooms and workspaces, plus a giant, immersive digital planetarium—an astronomy guy’s dream!” Franklin Marsh PO ’17 wrote in an email to TSL.
Jo Hardin, chair of the mathematics department, wrote in an email to TSL that the project is on schedule and that she expects department faculty members to move in to the new building early in the summer of 2015.
Despite the timeliness of the projects, some students expressed irritation with the construction on Sixth Street.
“What I don’t like
about the construction is that it blocks off the sidewalk so that there is no
sidewalk,” Yenny Zhang PO ’17 said. “With biking, I have to bike in the car
lane, and sometimes debris from construction flies in my eyes—it just feels a
little less safe than it should be.”
Claremont McKenna
College is beginning construction of the Roberts Pavilion, an athletic complex that will also be used for non-athletic events
and gatherings. The scheduled date of completion is 2016.
“Construction takes
away a decent number of parking spaces away that used to be available, but it’s
fine since there is another parking lot across the street,” Brett
Watanabe CM ’14 wrote in an email to TSL. “But
I am sure that it will be a huge resource for CMC and the CMS athletic program
in the years to come.”
Meanwhile, Scripps College
is nearing completion of a new wing of the Edwards Humanities Building. The building will house 17 faculty offices.
“I was personally
hoping that they’d build another dorm … because my class is the biggest class in Scripps’s history, so that’s been kind
of tough,” Bridgette Ramirez SC ’17 said. “But the new building looks really
nice.”
On Pitzer College’s
campus, the Gold Student Center (GSC) is undergoing renovations and is scheduled to reopen later in 2014. For the time being, clubs that had
offices in the GSC, like the Latino Student Union and the Student Senate, have
been moved to Holden Hall. Holden Hall is set to be demolished this summer.
Harvey Mudd College has not had construction projects on its campus since the completion of Galileo Hall last summer.