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Rebuilding taking toll on students' schedules, commute

At the beginning of 2006, more than 4,000 College of Business Administration students started their second year as nomads in classrooms scattered from one end of the University of Tennessee's campus to the other.

"We're using (classrooms) from the Hill, to Jessie Harris to the West Campus, which used to be called the (agriculture) campus," said Tom Ladd, the CBA's associate dean of research and technology.

Sometimes that was good.

"Really there are some good classrooms over there that our faculty don't mind a bit," Ladd said.

Then there were some drawbacks to not having your own home.

"Now it has been a scheduling problem as students adapt to the fact that they can't schedule back-to-back classes, one in Alumni Memorial and the other on the ag campus," Ladd said. "You've got to provide some commute time."

But since late November, the sights and sounds of construction have filled the heart of UT's campus where the new $39 million, 174,000-square-foot College of Business Administration building will stand on the site of the old one.

The new building will, however, still be fronted by the red brick facade of the CBA's home for more than 50 years, Glocker Business Administration Building.

Glocker was closed in late 2004 and then demolished.

Since then, the CBA has been without a true home, but Ladd said the students and staff are doing whatever it takes until the new building opens in 2008.

"Everybody knows that it is going to be an inconvenience, and we are going to deal with it," he said.

UT students, faculty and staff will have to get used to those sights and sounds — and the traffic delays and blocked sidewalks — of construction work because the new business building is just the first of several construction and renovation projects on campus in the next few years.

They include:
·  A new $37.5 million electrical and computer engineering building.
·  A $19.6 million renovation of Estabrook and Berry halls.
·  A $12 million renovation of the steam plant.
·  A $12 million relocation of the Cherokee Farm dairy operation.

Included in Gov. Phil Bredesen's proposed Fiscal Year 2006-2007 Budget are:
·  $30 million Joint Institute for Advanced Materials.
·  $4.9 million for new agriculture biotech greenhouses.
·  $23 million for the renovation of Ayres Hall.

That list doesn't include several athletics department projects that are paid for with athletic donor funds and revenues.

The building spree is another indication that UT is shaking off the presidential scandals and budget cuts that demoralized it less than three years ago.

UT still faces financial challenges because of flat state appropriations for higher education, but, as UT Knoxville Chancellor Loren Crabtree said in an interview last year, it finds a way to keep moving forward.

Jeff Maples, UT's senior associate vice chancellor for finance and administration, said it's a little uncommon to have this many projects going on at once.

"I'm not sure I'd label it a building boom, but, yes, it is unusual," Maples said. "It's progress, but it's also taxing the campus logistically to some degree. But it's all progress. We think it's great."

The work comes on the heels of several years when the state didn't appropriate any money for capital projects, though UT was able to get some things done through bond issues.

"The last couple of years he's (Bredesen) been very generous in his capital outlay. So, yes, because of that, it tends to be more than we ordinarily have," Maples said, "but we are kind of just catching up with those two or three years when there was no movement in the capital outlay requests."

Most of the projects are still in the design phase but, "I think 10 years from now, this campus is going to look a lot different," Maples said. "But it's going to be for the better."

The College of Business Administration's students will be the first to benefit from the slew of projects at UT.

With a new building that will be twice the size of its predecessor and include state-of-the-art classroom technology, Ladd said the college will be a focal point for business development in the state.

As for its students, Ladd said, "Oh, they have no earthly idea how big of a benefit it's going to be."