I started my day with Michelle of the Alumni Office taking me to breakfast at one of the dining halls. We ate at Lakeside, the dining hall that served the Scales, Waterbury, Johnson and Riggs dorms. The wind started to show itself as I figured it would. Lakeside has been completely renovated and still provides awesome views of Lake Ontario. It wasn't like Pathfinder or Cooper, the dining halls that I typically ate in when I was a student. Both Johnson and Riggs have also been renovated extensively, and look great. And neither one of them are single-sex either. Johnson is a freshman-only dorm now, and they have special leadership programs for those students to get involved certain activities.
I'm going to talk about my impressions of the campus before I get into what happened in class today. Michelle also gave me a tour of the campus and she invited a current student to join us. It was cool because I graduated in '93, Michelle graduated in '98 and the student, LaTasha, is graduating in '09. So I was able to get many of my questions answered on when certain things were changed.
Lonis and Moreland, part of the Mackin "complex" – the dorms that were the closest to The Shed, are now singles for seniors. That's pretty cool because when I was there, those dorms were definitely not the places you wanted to live in, although given the proximity to the bars, I now question that logic. Hart and Funnelle look the same. Scales and Waterbury have not been renovated yet. Michelle called going in there a time warp and you still have to walk outside from Scales when you go to Lakeside to eat, which must stink given the proximity to the lake and of course, the wind. New Campus, which consists of Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga and Oneida, looks the same except for recent paint jobs on Seneca and Onondaga.
LaTasha's student ID was good enough to get us into the Seneca dorm and the lobby looked exactly the same in every way possible. Yes, pictures will be posted. I remember the rugby players pulling pranks like putting stinky cheese in the elevators (what a waste of stinky cheese, right?), etc. No, we didn't go upstairs but I didn't get the sense that the rooms changed all that much. The buildings in the center of campus like Mahar, Lanigan and Penfield looked the same pretty much, although Penfield now has a coffee shop/café inside, which is handy. Of course, the reference area is now devoid of any evidence of card catalogs and microfiche and is full of computers. But an area that we used to study in on the 1st floor, the Documents room is gone. They just put some sheetrock there and use it for library offices. Come to think of it, I would love to know if anyone recalls seeing a student or professor ever use those 'Documents' in the room?
Park, Piez and Snygg look the same. I learned later that those buildings, which house Natural Sciences, Computer Science and Mathematics, are next in terms of major renovations. That should be cool once they finish that.
The big news is that Hewitt Union is pretty much on its last legs. The only things that seem to be left in there are the actual book store, which is different than the campus store where you would be Oswego State merchandise. There are a handful of offices still there, but no major student activity seems to go on there. That is because Oswego State renovated Swetman Hall, former home of the School of Business, to be home of the new Campus Center.
The Campus Center is now home to the aforementioned campus store, numerous cafes, lounges, smoothie bars, Career Center, media (WTOP, WNYO and the Oswegonian), meeting rooms, Study Abroad Office, amongst other organizations. It is bright, well laid out and way more accessible for students to not have to go back to their dorms or off-campus for something decent to eat. It is also home to the new hockey arena, which is very cool. No more schlepping to Rommey for games, and during the day, they let students rent skates and host an open skate session. Way to share it with the students. I had the opportunity to meet 3 of the hockey players (more on that in the other posts) and they think it is awesome because the crowds are way better.
In essence, they very shifted the center of campus away from Hart/Funnelle and Hewitt Union, and moved it to Swetman/Poucher. Oh yeah, Poucher was also significantly renovated. So I don't think Swetman really exists anymore in how we might remember it, but Poucher still has classes – English, Education, Foreign Language Labs, I think. More lounges and rooms for students to meet up in between classes. Really cool. I thought it was great they moved the Career Center, now called Compass, to a place friendlier to students. I remember it being in Culkin Hall, which was and still is administration, and who would want to go there. I don't think I ever did in retrospect. Oh and the Centro buses now stop at the Campus Center vs. the back of Hewitt Union where the dumpsters were. That's a plus, right?
So you are probably wondering where the School of Business is, right? When we (meaning my classmates) were there, Rich Hall was used for Foreign Languages – I hated schlepping there for French because I basically had to walk from one end of campus to another, being on New Campus and all. On the other side of Rich Hall was Public Safety. Well I don't know where Public Safety is now and that has to be a bonus that I didn't need to find out, but the entire building is now the School of Business.
The best way to compare Swetman to Rich in its current form is like thinking we had the Best Western and the current students have the Four Seasons. No offense to anyone who stays at the Best Western, but these digs are palatial in comparison. The new building opened up in 2003 (?) and it has everything you need for presenting seamlessly from your laptop, wireless, café, meeting rooms, lounges, etc. BASAC is still there as well. It was pretty cool to see that they made such an investment. I'll post some pics on that too. I must have looked like a complete dork (ok, I'm typically a dork anyway but still) taking pictures because I was really impressed. Different recycling bins were in every classroom that I saw – people seemed to take it seriously, which was cool.
After speaking to the classes, I went for a run around campus in preparation for my ½ marathon. There was no excuse not to run because it was absolutely perfect running weather – clear, sunny and high 50s. I did a 5 mile loop, which included a bit of off campus too. "The Blues", right near the soccer fields and Rommey, are still there and are still very blue. LOL. My run took me around the New Campus area loop, so yep, there was Glimmerglass Lagoon (that was for you, Lisa A.), and there was a ton of construction going on over by where the Hidden Fields are.
So think about coming into the main entrance of campus and taking the 1st left, and that is where the construction is. They are building suite apartments, so like Onondaga but with actual kitchen facilities, that will house 350 students. Demand is very high for that kind of living arrangement on campus, and it looks like they just broke ground recently. Since I was doing my run, no pictures but right now there are just a bunch oversized Tonka trucks on the land.
I was really looking forward to the tour when the Alumni Office put together my schedule, and I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed. But it looks like even more changes are afoot, which should be great for the students, professors and the rest of the community.