At the annual Fall Faculty Conference this past August, President Miaoulis announced a proposed plan to switch Global Heritage Hall (GHH) and the Gabelli School of Business (Gabelli). Gabelli would become the Center for Humanities building and GHH would be reinvented into the Gabelli School of Business. This decision came after a comprehensive review of the academic buildings.
“To be competitive, the business school needs a larger building and opportunities to develop more specialized facilities for programs like finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship. At the same time, the humanities programs lack a visible presence on campus, and by renovating and renaming the current business building, we can address that and showcase a vision for the humanities at RWU,” said Provost Margaret Everett.
These plans are a continuation of renovations that have happened around campus. In recent years, there has been a reinvented School of Engineering building, lab spaces in the Marine and Natural Sciences building as well as the studio space in the Architecture building have been renovated and expanded.
Now, it’s come to the university’s attention that the Gabelli School of Business needs to be expanded to keep up with their competitors, both in appearance and the program itself. Currently, business students are dealing with undersized classrooms.
“There’s an interest in locating them in a space that is more in line with business programs in the northeast. They’re interested in keeping up with their competitors. And so this building looks more like what other institutions of a similar size to RWU have for their business programs.” says Jeffery Meriwether, Dean of The School of Humanities, Arts, and Education.
Along with sharing GHH, The School of Humanities, Arts and Education (SHAE) finds their classes to be scattered around campus too. Students will take Public Speaking in GHH, core writing classes in the ELS Language Center, and their major specific classes in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) building.
“What this did is it provided an opportunity for the School of Humanities, Arts and Education to locate itself physically at the center of campus. We’re gonna be right on the green, right on the conversation, right on the quad.” Says Jeffery Meriwether, Dean of SHAE. “Humanities programming runs throughout the entire operation on this campus. This school is the one that teaches all the students writing. This school is the one that teaches students about public speaking. You know, this school is the one that teaches students about the way that we engage the world, and so we see ourselves as crucial to the student experience at Roger Williams.”
There are a lot of factors to consider when making the switch. GHH has The Sandbox Lounge, a space for PR students, computer and design labs as well as a podcast studio. These spaces are important to many students in the Communications programs. Dean Meriwether said, “With regard to the labs that exist in this building, I’m not sure where they fall into that yet, and that’s why they wanted that inventory to figure out what exactly we’re doing, and can they even locate that stuff over there with the same seating capacity and all that stuff.”
“The intention is to include spaces for all the humanities programs,” said Provost Everett.
A concern for many students and faculty, especially in SHAE, is losing resources and space. Provost Everett reassures this will not happen. “There is no plan to downsize programs.”
Dean Meriwether is in agreement with Everett: “If they’re gonna make this successful, they have to make it successful for everybody. Their goal is to take what exists right now, and what’s working for people and recreate it.”
Students and faculty who are still concerned about the future of their programs will have their voices heard. “It’s important to ensure that faculty and students are involved in this conversation. Even the Dean’s office can’t be totally definitive on what people need without asking people themselves.” Says Dean Meriwether. “We’re going to ask faculty to join a committee so they can deliver on the aspects of their programs, you know, their specific student needs, all that kind of stuff.”
The process is just in its beginning stages, with only initial plans drawn up. Neither Provost Everett or Dean Meriwether are sure when the renovations would be happening.
“We do not yet know if we would be able to complete these renovations in a summer or if we will be conducting a more phased construction approach,” said Provost Everett.
“Based solely upon watching them build that engineering labs building,” says Dean Meriwether, “It doesn’t seem likely that they could reformat that building and reformat this building to the needs of the constituencies in time for next August.”
Plans for creating a Center of Humanities and a new and improved Gabelli School of Business have a long way to go before they become reality.
