Student Success Center expands

STAFF REPORT

The renovation of the Eastern New Mexico University Golden Library into the Student Success Center will mostly be an expansion of current student services, according to Director Melvita Walker.

“We’re not really changing a lot,” Walker said during a presentation she gave to the Friends of the Library group and other community members at the Portales Public Library on Thursday. “We’ve had snippets and pieces of this all along, but we’re extending those services to what we think the students really need.”

Walker said the library will be asking for another $11 million in November 2016 to fund the renovation.

“We received $11 million in 2014 with the GEO bond, and the university was able to add $4 million to that, but it’s going to cost $26 million to do what we need to have done to the building,” she said.

Walker explained to those gathered what needs to be done to the university library and the reasons for the renovation.

Along with the fact that the building is the last one on campus to be renovated, Walker said the library has a different focus.

“We would like for this to become a destination for everybody on campus, students, faculty and staff,” she said. “So we’ve agreed to put in some things that are not there now, such as the graduate commons, which is currently in the CUB (Campus Union Building).

It really needs to be in a more accessible place.”

Walker said the library would like to support the veterans with some programs and although they’ve had tutoring services available for many years, they would like to have an official program.

Along with a writing center and a financial aid office that will be available for part of the year, the new center will see the return of distance education training, which Walker said began in Quay Hall as “extended education” and moved into the library once credit was given for online classes.

“Distance education was in the library for about three years and then moved to the Education Building,” she said. “Forty percent of our students are distance education, so the help and training for them will be moving back.”

Replacing the staircase in the library will be a hub, which Walker said will be the focal point on the center.

“When the architects first came, they asked if there were any ‘sacred cows’ that they weren’t allowed to touch,” she said. “I told them I’d like to keep the mural upstairs, the sign above the entrance to the library which says, “Cease not to learn until thou cease to live,” and the stairs. Well, I got two out of three.”

There will still be two staircases in the building, and Walker said the general collection will be brought down to the first floor.

“The first floor will be a lot more active,” Walker said. “Hopefully the second floor will remain as a quiet zone for studying. We’re experimenting and trying to find out what the students really want in their success center, and that has included methods of studying areas.”

Walker added that the library will also benefit from a technology update and new plumbing.

“We don’t have enough electricity, because the building was the first to have Internet and Wi-Fi, so it’s all old technology that needs to be changed,” she said. “The plumbing is really bad and the roof leaks.”

According to Walker, the renovation should take two years to complete, and in the meantime, library services with regular hours and staff will continue in the first floor of Bernalillo Hall on campus.

“We’ll begin moving out in May, and we should be out the first of June, or the middle of June at the latest, and then demolition will begin,” she said.

Walker said the dormitory was not built for the kind of weight required to hold books on the floor, but they will be able to continue services such as computer use, references, assistance and media services.

Journals will be put in the basement of the building, and Walker said the area of the CUB that used to be ground zero will serve as library storage.

“Students won’t be allowed to go in there; the librarians will go and pull whatever the students and faculty need,” she said. “That still won’t be quite enough space though, so we’re also going to use three conference rooms in the bottom of the basement for special collections where they can be secure and have climate control.”

Government documents will be put into a storage area near President Steven Gamble’s house.

“It’s a mile from Bernalillo Hall to Dr. Gamble’s house, so I’ve asked if we could please have a golf cart,” Walker said with a laugh.

The only real drawback to the process, Walker said, will be the loss of the parking lot beside the Baptist Student Union.

“The architects have claimed that for staging their equipment, so the community will be impacted by that,” she said.

Walker also brought along graphic renditions of what the success center is expected to look like.

Along with removal of the foyer, Walker said there will be a lot of western exposure to bring in more natural light.

Walker said what is probably the most unique addition will be a new entrance included on the street side.

“It’s been a lot of work already,” said Walker, who has also been in the process of weeding out things in the library that don’t fit the curriculum anymore. “But it’s very exciting.”