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Volume 41, Issue 11
March 9, 2004
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March
9,
2004
Construction meets rising
enrollment
Lee Kaufheil
Mesa Legend
To combat the problem of limited space, a new building has been erected
at Red Mountain. The building only created four new classrooms, but it
will allow the campus to offer several more courses.
The rate at which attendance has been growing at Red Mountain is higher
than predicted.
“
Each semester there were eight orphan classes that were forced to meet
wherever there was space for them,” said Brian Peterson, a communications
teacher.
The new building has been named Rosewood, as all of the buildings at
Red Mountain are named after desert plants.
“
The new building helps the campus move toward its goal of becoming truly
comprehensive by allowing a broader selection of classes to be offered,” said
Gwen Argersinger, a resident English teacher.
Although Rosewood does not match the rest of the campus’ architecture,
the building is only planned to be used for the next 10 to 20 years,
until other campus renovations are complete by 2022.
The construction of Rosewood was able to stay within the goals of requiring
the least amount of destruction to the desert environment that Red Mountain
faculty and administrators value.
An administrator at Red Mountain, Yvonne Schmidt, says that the campus
is working on improving its scheduling of classes to maximize the amount
of space used and the amount of classes it can offer
The building’s location was chosen to centralize student activity
by the main campus to keep students from having to rush between Red Mountain’s
upper and lower campus, which are a quarter of a mile apart. Schmidt
sees a long lifetime of use for the new building. It is hard to predict
attendance for each semester and offering too many classes can lead to
cancellation of classes. Rosewood will allow administrators more flexibility
in offering the right amount of classes at the right time.
The cost of the building itself was about $250,000 and it was completed
within budget. Dean of Administrative Services Ron Etter said spring
break is most likely to be the time contractors will be brought in to
paint it, in order to match it to surrounding buildings.
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