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Tribal Hunting Student Files |
By Emily Davis
At lunchtime, the law library is this, in a nutshell: “Here we all are! In a nutshell!”1 For you tired, you poor, you huddled masses, yearning to be free,2 the Faculty Building Committee (FBC) has been discussing building renovations to alleviate some library overcrowding. Though currently in the discussion stage of the process, the law school is planning a gradual but full-scale overhaul of campus facilities.
Because of a limited construction budget, the process is divided into phases. A new phase will begin when enough money has accumulated in the building budget to complete it. The FBC’s job is to prioritize the school’s needs to determine how the law school should spend its money in each phase.
Phase I, ambiguously scheduled to start whenever the planning is finished, is to include a library addition. Sensitive to preserving the adjacent forest, the addition would be located on the north side of the existing library building, and would replace part of the parking lot. The 46,000 square foot addition could house two new classrooms; group study rooms; the patent library, and several multi-purpose rooms for student organization offices, storage, copy center, and other uses. The new library would have more room for computer labs and enlarged general study space.
If Phase I is completed as proposed by the FBC, Gantenbein would be used primarily for showers, lockers, and mailboxes, and career services and the legal writing staff would move into the new library building. Additionally, the Legal Research Center would gain four full-time faculty offices and four visiting professor offices. Phase I, as projected, would cost about $20 million.
Phase II could spend $5.7 million to enlarge the Legal Research Center dramatically to make it big enough for a lobby, a shower area, and a conference room. Parking would be reconfigured, bike parking would be increased, and a bus shelter would be built.
Alternatively, Phase II could spend $7.2 million to replace the McCarty Classroom building (which now houses classrooms 1 through 4). The new building would have two large classrooms, and one classroom the size of Room 4. It would also house admissions, a lobby, administrative services, and a multi-purpose classroom that could also be used as an auditorium and as a practice courtroom. A faculty shower would also be installed in the Legal Research Center.
Do you agree with the FBC’s priorities? What do we need to improve most about the law school facilities? The FBC requests your input. Please email Mike Fleming at mfleming@ with comments or questions.
1 Mike Myers, “So I Married an Ax Murderer.”
2 Emma Lazarus, Statue of Liberty inscription.