After weeks of working alongside demolition teams and construction crews renovating Peabody Hall, the Office of the Dean of Students has decided to relocate temporarily to trailers on the corner of Alderman and McCormick Roads.
The makeshift offices, located directly across from Observatory Hill Dining Hall, were originally put up to serve as a temporary home for offices that would be displaced during a planned O-Hill renovation.
But when University officials scrapped the plans to remodel O-Hill because of budget concerns, the future of the trailers was left up in the air.
The office will probably wait at least until Fall Break to move, said V. Shamim Sisson, senior associate dean of students.
The office will not move back to Peabody until June, when the project is slated to be completed.
The office had been planning on staying put throughout the renovation process, but it was just too noisy and dusty, said Richard Minturn, University project manager for the Peabody Hall renovation.
Yesterday, "there was a ceiling demolition right below the dean's office and they could hear it," Minturn said.
Another problem created by the construction is that the only wheelchair access to the Office of the Dean of Students is an elevator which can only be reached by crossing a construction site, he said.
The move will "work out to be a better situation for everybody," he added.
The office now is located on the second floor of Peabody Hall, and most of the construction is on the first floor. The Office of Admissions, currently housed in Miller Hall, will move to Peabody next fall.
Miller Hall is scheduled to be demolished to accomodate a new library.
Now that the construction crew will not have to work around the Office of the Dean of Students, the Peabody project will be completed sooner than originally planned, Minturn said.
"I would have preferred not to move," Asst. Dean of Students Aaron Laushway said. "However, we have been given very satisfactory office space in which to conduct our day-to-day operations in the O-Hill area."
Sisson said the temporary offices will have all the comforts of the deans' regular offices, including air conditioning, heat, phone service and internet access.
Students should be as comfortable coming by the temporary offices as they did stopping by Peabody and not encumbered by the extra distance, she said.
Students hopefully will "feel free to access us the same they would here," Sisson said.
Laushway agreed that remaining available and accessible to students is one of the greatest concerns about moving.
"It is my hope that our interactions with students will not be greatly affected by the move from Central Grounds," he said.
Minturn will be responsible for coordinating the relocation.
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