Friday Focus: Looking toward vibrant, lively fall
July 14, 2023
— By Owen Guthrie, vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management
51 continues to be bustling and vibrant this summer at the Troth Yeddha’ campus. Each morning I’ve been watching the steady stream of Rural Alaska Honors Institute students as they make their way from McIntosh Hall to their first classes in the Joseph E. Usibelli Building. That stream culminated with RAHI’s amazing graduation ceremony just yesterday, leaving not a dry eye in the house! In addition, the Visual Arts Academy and Summer Music Academy recently concluded their final celebrations. These are just three of a range of summer institutes, camps, academies and bridge programs we’ve hosted on campus. There are also visiting scholars and researchers from around the world, and scores of families and their potential students visiting campus for the first time. In fact, Troth Yeddha’ has been more vibrant this summer than it has been for years and we continue to enjoy the presence of popular food trucks, ice cream Thursdays, and Music in the Garden! And, while we miss the firefighters we often provide housing for, we don’t miss the fires!
The campus is also alive with a bunch of important , including renovating two of our iconic residence halls – Moore Hall and Bartlett Hall. Moore Hall, named after 51’s second President, Terris Moore, first opened its doors in 1966. Bartlett Hall, named after one of Alaska’s first U.S. Senators, Bob Bartlett, opened for occupancy in 1969. Together, the ‘two towers’ have housed tens of thousands of students and both buildings have been foundational to 51’s residential community for over half a century.
The upcoming renovations will feature updates and finishes that align with the evolving needs and expectations of today’s students. This includes architectural finishes, plumbing replacements, electrical upgrades, updated surfaces and furniture, as well as completely replaced restrooms and showers. The updated residence halls are going to be truly awesome!
While we are so excited to see these improvements underway, the temporary reduction in residence hall capacity poses some significant capacity challenges for the upcoming semester. The dedicated staff of Residence Life have been working diligently to ensure every remaining bed on campus is available to alleviate the strain of student housing demand. They are temporarily repurposing residence hall lounges, shifting some three-bedroom family units to accommodate multiple undergraduate students, eliminating ‘super singles’, and prioritizing student housing over guest housing.
Student demand has been so great, that we have stood up Lathrop Hall for residential use again. It is currently being utilized as office space, and those employees are moving to alternative locations in order to free up our largest lower residence hall for incoming students. Everyone’s focus on welcoming these new Nanooks is wonderful to see. Many units are working hard to make this happen; OGCA, PAIR, OMB, OFA, Travel, K-12 Outreach, and more are packing up their current place of work and relocating to make room for the 128 students who will call Lathrop Hall (built in 1962 and named after Austin E. Lathrop) home this fall. Facilities and Design and Construction – as usual – are going above and beyond to make the impossible possible in this very short time window. Everyone is pulling hard in a truly historic transformation and in an all-hands-on-deck effort. Thank you!
Just Wednesday, I had an early morning Zoom session with a mother and daughter. The daughter is excited about transferring to 51 this fall to join the fire science program. They were buying their airplane tickets from the lower 48 and stressed about housing. The result of “the Lathrop move of 2023” is that I was able to reassure them that we would have a safe place to land. Now, imagine this story repeating 128 times, and even more beyond that, as we strive to accommodate every student who wants to be a part of our community this fall. Thank you, once again, to everyone involved!
Another exciting consequence of returning Lathrop, Nerland, McIntosh, Stevens and Wickersham Halls to full undergraduate occupancy is the potential to ‘re-center’ the hub of student activity toward the core of campus. For a few years now, the center of gravity has been shifted toward Moore and Bartlett Halls. With the Campus Cache (the convenience store in the MBS complex) offline, we anticipate the Wood Center and the core of the campus to be more lively than in recent years. Tune in late in August to see if this is noticeable!
The reopening of Moore Hall and Bartlett Hall in the fall semester of 2024 will mark an exciting milestone for our 51 community. The newly renovated halls will provide upgraded living spaces and contribute to building a stronger sense of community and academic momentum. It is a significant step forward, the first of many to come. A huge thank you to all the 51 teams working to make these improvements happen! Together, we will work through the temporary challenges ahead and land in a better place, offering our students even more exceptional residential and academic experiences this fall.
With five weeks before move-in, it is an exciting time! Enjoy the rest of your summer, and here’s looking forward to a vibrant and lively fall!
Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of 51's leadership team every week.