The COMMunity is On the Move!
By Hunter Stinnett
At the first all majors meeting for 2019, Department Chair, Jeff Halliday shared with current COMMunity students exciting news: the Communication Studies Department will be moving across campus into the new academic building beginning in fall 2020. Though CSTAC has been home to the department since 2009, the faculty was given an amazing opportunity to grow and be closer to the French studios.
The new academic building behind French Hall.
Halliday said the new building will, “Increase student-faculty engagement because the offices and classrooms will both be on the second floor of the building.” This way, students will no longer have to go to another floor in the building or across campus to talk with their professors: everyone will now be in one location.
Plans for the new academic building were a part of the 2015 Campus Master Plan and construction began in April of 2018. The new building is set to open in fall 2020 and has yet to be named. Many faculty and students are excited about the move since French Hall is where a majority of the Digital Media concentration classes are held. Many students make that dreaded run from CSTAC to French, or vice versa, in that short 10-minute transition between classes, will benefit. Sadly, future COMM students will not have to sprint the 7 minutes it takes to go between French and CSTAC.
Dr. Ryan Stouffer, Dr. Alec Hosterman, and Dr. Pam Tracy explore the new building.
Dr. Naomi Johnson is extremely excited for the new building and the opportunity for the two concentrations to work more closely together. Johnson stated, “I am really excited about the possibilities to develop collaborative classes between the concentrations. For example, it would be wonderful to have a ‘PR Lab’ like we have ‘COMM Lab’ now, with the public relations students working in collaboration with the digital media students to promote the videos they create or to develop events that will be filmed.” Dr. Naomi said that this is just one example of the many ideas the department has come up with once the buildings are side by side.
The Department of Health, Athletic Training, Recreation, and Kinesiology (HARK) will also be using the building as a space for new equipment and labs. The second and third floors will have an area for collaborative learning spaces, offices for faculty, the Center for Academic Faculty Enrichment (CAFÉ), classrooms, student research, and study rooms.
A sneak peek of the second floor from inside the building.
While many alum might be worried about how the COMMunity will adjust after leaving CSTAC, the place Dr. Bill Stuart taught and impacted so many, Halliday reminds everyone: ‘the COMMunity is mobile.’ And, Dr. Naomi also gave a bit of teaser in saying that “Dr. Stuart started this major and he will always be with us in spirit, so it was important to have him come with us.”
With this news, how do you think the department should incorporate Dr. Stuart into the new building? And what accent color wall would you want the new COMM classrooms to have? The iconic green, or a new color? Place your comments below.
purple all the way!
Tar Heel Blue for Dr B!!