Renovations signal facilities advancement

Renovations 2014

Renovations to the offices of Students and Instruction and Research and Graduate Studies began in June.

We’re dusting out the old, plastering in the new at the college these days. The constant sound of drills and table saws, and the sight of workers hauling materials back and forth around the Veterinary Academic Building and within the UF Veterinary Hospitals will soon be replaced by quiet, functional spaces in which faculty, staff and students can calmly carry on with business as usual.

For the time-being, at least.

“There are actually several projects going on this summer in most of our college buildings,” said John Haven, director of medical/health administration for the college. Among the projects:

  • Restroom renovation in the large animal hospital outside of the equine auditorium:
    Over the years, class size has expanded, and the mixture of the student body has shifted from what the building code required, to an 80% female ratio. A project this summer will add a number of additional stalls, with a greater weighting of female stalls.
  • New faculty offices in old bookstore space:
    The old bookstore has been vacant for about a year now. While there were many suggestions for what to put there, “the most pressing need was more faculty offices,” Haven said. As a result, this space is being renovated to accommodate five new faculty offices.
  • Main bathrooms for men and women in old Small Animal Hospital:
    These restrooms are undergoing their first real facelift since the building — one of the college’s oldest — was created. According to Haven, this renovation goes “all the way to dirt” and will result in more bathroom stalls for women, new tile showers for men and women. There will be recognition of the needs of faculty, staff and students who combine their time at UF with motherhood with the addition of a comfortable and private nursing room. The renovations will also include the creation of a unisex bathroom.
  • Administrative offices: Major renovations are taking place this summer in the Office of  Students and Instruction and in the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. As the student body has grown, and with the advent of strategic recruiting needs, the OSI staff have outgrown their area. In their new space, all of the staff will have private offices to better be able to consult with students in private to address curriculum or personal issues as needed. At the same time, the the college has renewed its focus on expanding the graduate program, and greater attention to supporting the research enterprise of the college. As a result, RGS has also outgrown its area. Additionally, the former RGS conference was often deemed inadequately small, and lacked audiovisual capabilities. In the old configuration, neither RGS or OSI had a true reception desk or waiting area, and that will change with the renovations. Lastly, for guests of the college dean who are visiting or happen into that office, there has been no obvious wayfinding for the dean’s office. The renovations will  address that problem with a common reception area for OSI, RGS, and the dean’s office.

Additional projects include plans for replacing the surgical light fixtures and overhead lights in the surgery lab area of the VAB; adding power outlets to each seat in classrooms A and B to better facilitate students having computer devices and cellphones in the classrooms; and replacing the east ramp to the old Small Animal Hospital.

“All of these projects will be completed in time for school to start, but they won’t be the end of the dust,” Haven said, adding that a “Round Two” of projects is already being planned.

“The combination of six old labs in the old Small Animal Hospital building into a quality integrated core lab is already well into design phase,” he said. “And last but certainly not least, construction planning for the new clinical techniques and simulation lab will be going through the vendor selection process in just the next few weeks.”

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