Story by Destinee Marking, Senior writer
Water leaking through windows, puddles of water in the hallways and mold on the ceiling and walls. That’s what students who attended class in Woods Hall and those who had offices there have dealt with for years.
The Board of Regents had planned to renovate Blackburn Science Building in order to house the relocated offices and classrooms from Woods Hall. However, due to accelerated deterioration, faculty, staff and students were moved to other locations on campus sooner than anticipated.
Originally, offices and classrooms were expected to stay in Woods Hall until fall 2019, but Shawn Touney, director of communication, said recent rainfall resulting in damages to the building pushed all resources out earlier this month.
Education Abroad is now located in Lovett Auditorium, International Recruitment is in the Oakley Applied Science Building, International Admissions and Student Services is in Pogue Library and ESL classrooms and offices are in Faculty Hall.
The Blackburn Science Building renovations and the future of Woods Hall were discussed during the deferred maintenance projects update at the most recent Board of Regents meeting Oct. 19.
During this portion of the meeting, Regent Don Tharpe expressed concern about the University not committing the necessary funds to maintain buildings on campus.
“On behalf of those students who are not here to speak to this and taxpayers of Kentucky, I believe we have to address this deferred maintenance issue,” Tharpe said.
To avoid meeting years in the future and reporting on the same issues, Tharpe said a solid plan is needed now.
“If you look at the dormitories, some of them are barely up to Section 8 housing standards,” Tharpe said. “Some of the students are complaining that they can’t even choose their clothes because there’s not enough light in the rooms, so I’m continuing wanting us as a Board to ask administration to come forward with some plan to address these deferred maintenance issues. If we continue to kick this can down the road, five, six, seven, eight, ten years from now, we’re going to be tearing these buildings down.”
Nearly a year ago at the Dec. 8, 2017 Board of Regents meeting, the Board approved moving forward with the plan to renovate the Blackburn Science Building so Veterans Affairs, international programs and experiential learning could be moved into the building.
At the meeting, former president Bob Davies said the demolition of Woods Hall is a university priority. He said the building is “glorious” when looking at the outside, but the inside does not reflect that.
“The facility is old,” Davies said. “It is well past its prime. It’s well past its usefulness. Demolition of a facility is never inexpensive. It’s always something we don’t want to do, but sometimes we must, and Woods Hall has definitely created that situation.”
The demolition of Woods Hall was one of the projects authorized by Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposed biennial budget at the beginning of 2016.
The estimated cost for the razing of Woods Hall is $2.3 million, but Jackie Dudley, vice president of finance and administrative services, said the project has not yet been funded. She said the remainder of the $3 million funding Blackburn renovations will go toward razing Woods Hall.
Lisa Rudolph, Board of Regents vice chair, said she understands Tharpe’s concerns.
“By looking at this, I really don’t know when the situation is going to improve,” she said. “I know that any budget, you can’t predict it, but when I look at it, it seems like we look at a lot of the same things each time and we don’t have any good idea of when things are going to be accomplished.”
Interim President Bob Jackson said the process of establishing a plan is lengthy and difficult.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure we have a very, very thoughtful plan of action,” Jackson said. “Then we have to allocate the dollars if they haven’t already been allocated.”
Additionally, Jackson said a plan will not immediately solve all issues.
“We can be as detailed as we want, but the problem with this is we’re addressing some issues that have been bubbling for some time, so over the course of the next several months and years, we will be tackling all of the things on this list, and there will be new items added,” Jackson said.
Everything is intended to be out of Woods Hall by Thanksgiving so the building can officially be locked, and Jackson said the building will ideally be razed during summer 2019 when students are not on campus.
Dudley said the goal of completing the Blackburn renovations by fall 2019 is “lofty,” but it must get done so the International Studies department can be moved in.
“We’re anxious to pull those units back together as one functioning unit,” she said.
