Welcome Back to our renovation blog! Before we get into details of the third floor walk through, we wanted to share the answers to last week's quiz questions and announce the overall winners. 

1.How many total work hours are being put in by the construction crew in a week? (Total workers x hours worked x days worked...within 20 hours will be considered correct!) 
ANSWER: Roughly 1,840 hours a week

2. Which space from the previous Bryant Center's layout will the Gertrude Meth Hochberg Women's Center and Pride Center be located in? 
ANSWER: Nick's Place

3. What will be the new maximum number of seats (in rows) for the "Papitto and Heritage" combined meeting space this fall? (Within 10 will be considered correct!) 
ANSWER: 225 Seats


4. How many Office of Campus Engagement student employees will be working in the building this upcoming fall? (Within 5 will be considered correct)
ANSWER: 40 Student Employees

      The time has come to see photos and learn more about the top floor in the building, the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor has always been extremely busy with E-Board meetings, poster making, and student leaders coming together and socializing, however it has never been considered the most practical or functional use of space. To get from one office to the next you had to walk in a large circle, providing little area for collaboration among the organizations.
      With the renovation, the Campus Engagement staff are excited to see just how much this area will transform student life and involvement at Bryant. The empty gap that was enclosed by windows in the past will now be filled in, and will provide small work areas for group meetings, a place where E-Boards of all student organizations can get together to discuss their next program or project. Also, all major organizations on campus except WJMF, who is housed in the Koffler Communications Complex, will have their own office on this floor, as opposed to scattered throughout the building. This should provide each major organization better opportunities to learn from each other, communicate with one another, and potentially cosponsor more programs together. Finally, there will be a 12 person conference room on the third floor, expanding upon what past Bryant Center users may remember as Room 3. This new and improved space will actually overlook the pond on campus, and include smart technology for our organizations and community members to use.  

     Throughout the past month we have taken you on an in depth walk through of each floor, provided you with construction photos, and tried to share as much information as possible. We hope that you are getting excited for the Grand Opening of our renovated Student Center on September 27th. Moving forward, we hope to showcase details of new services, programs, and opportunities that will be afforded to you in the new building as well as show you photos of our progress. Beyond that, we hope to provide you with more insight from the professionals who have worked tirelessly to get this building where it is today. 
     Look out for another contest next week and remember to remind your friends to check out the new photos and posts! Enjoy your weekend everybody!

      First and Foremost, this week we decided to engage our Student Center Renovation followers in a contest. Fill out the quiz below, and the individual with the best score will be awarded a $10 Dunkin' Gift Card. Make sure you complete the quiz  by June 12th and put your name and email so we know how to contact the winner. Good luck!

Besides the quiz above, we also wanted to bring you pictures from our walk through of the second floor. Thanks to the renovation, the second floor will host a variety of new features and offices. One of the most exciting additions to the second floor are the Collaboration Stations that will be perfect to host an interactive group meeting or for friends to relax and play Xbox together. Beyond that, the majority of the Student Center's resources will be relocated onto this floor. For example, the majority of the Office of Campus Engagement Staff, the Gertrude Meth Hochberg Women's Center, the Pride Center, the Campus Ministry Office, the Commuter H.U.B, the Bookstore and the Intercultural Center will all be located throughout the second floor now. Below you can see an example of one of the offices they have begun to create.  The rest of the photos from our second floor walk through can be seen in the photo gallery!

     Otherwise, get excited for the announcement of this week's quiz winner as well as photos from the 3rd floor next Thursday! Feel free to spread the link to your other friends to keep them in the loop, too. 

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who has come out and checked out the website. Just in the first week alone there were over 1,800 unique visitors, which is pretty impressive. Good to see that you are all interested about the new Student Center and what’s going on with the renovation this summer.

Earlier this week, some of the Operations staff and myself were able to do a walk through of the building in order to see the progress of the construction crew thus far. Each Thursday for the next few weeks, I’ll be posting the photos from a different floor of the building, so that you will be able to see each floor and what it has to offer throughout the month of June. After talking to Shawmut, the construction company, we are hoping to be able to go back into the building again early July, but with strict safety regulations, it will depend on their approval.  

Before we were even allowed into the building we all had to be wearing sneakers, long pants, hard hats and protective construction glasses. Room 1 is currently being used as the construction crews headquarters, filled with diagrams, extra hard hats, a few computers, and an AC unit to cool down. After leaving Room 1, the building is completely transformed and in some places virtually unrecognizable. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Go check them out now before reading the rest of this week's post!

Hope you enjoyed hearing about some of the demolition and construction going on in the building thus far. Did you notice the following when looking through the newest photos?

1.  The painting by the Salad section of South
   
2. What the old "Pit" has turned into now
3. The curtains from the stage in South Dining Hall
4. No more wall between Papitto and Heritage

Looking towards the future, as the demolition phase comes to an end, the first floor is one of the areas with the most changes and updates. Heritage and Papitto will have a retractable wall allowing for a much larger programming space than available previously in our student center. Many organizations will be able to host speakers or their own banquets right in the Student Center. Also, the Information Center will resettle on the first floor right across from the new fireplace that will be right in the center of the common space. This past semester, a committee also worked on updating South's food options, focusing on providing a more holistic menu thinking of the entire community, and in particular adding more MEAL options as opposed to sandwiches, salads, etc. Finally, there will be a programming space housing a 70 inch television and sound system for various events in the building. This transformational space will be used to accommodate small musical acts, important televised programs, and late night Bryant@Night events. Across from this will be a new sound proof Music Practice space, giving our performance/music groups an opportunity to more easily express their creativity and practice for upcoming shows and events.

Below you can find a poll pertaining to some of the changes occurring on the first floor--let us know what you are looking forward to the most!