As you walk through the sturdy steel gates, you are greeted by the old familiar faces
of the original deep red facades of the buildings. Within every worn brick lies the
story of students who have roamed the halls and gone on to achieve great success.
As these buildings have generated vast amounts of promise in the years before, so
will the future facilities to come. Within the hardened cement of every new brick
laid, there lies the foundation for infinite possibilities and achievement.

AT Ohio University, from Spring this year to Winter of 2014, students will be able
to see the potential for these possibilities and achievements rise up in the form of
two new facilities on campus: The Walter International Education Center and the
Schoonover Center for Communication.

Walter International Education Center

The small space in Lindley Hall that currently houses the Office of Education Abroad
is a cramped, muted area: modest, to say the least, in comparison to the world of
opportunities that it offers. “As far as the programs we offer, the sky is pretty much
the limit, you can create your own opportunities” Described Catherine Marshall,
Director of the Office of Education Abroad. Luckily the proportions of the office will
be changing soon, and the department will be getting a space more appropriate in
scale for their international endeavors. Located on Park Place next to Baker Center
the new Office of Education Abroad (OEA) and International Student and Faculty
Services (ISFS) building has come a long way from its days of fraternity folly. The
fully remodeled building, tentatively dubbed “Walter International Education
Center”, will be a “home” for students who have left the bricks of Athens to explore
international grounds and also for students from countries afar who’s destination
for international study is Ohio University.

Staff members of the OEA are used to being able to talk to each other without even
leaving their desks. However, in the new building, the staff of the OEA and the staff
of the ISFS will be dispersed between four floors. The staff of both departments will
be intermingled in their workspace, providing for an environment of collaboration
and learning between both offices. The staff will not be the only people to reap
the benefits of this change, students will be interacting and sharing ideas through
planned programming between offices and general day-to-day interaction in waiting
rooms, sitting areas and meetings.

Catherine Marshall described the intertwining of the two offices as a “great
opportunity for students to collaborate and educate each other in a natural
setting”. These two offices have never shared a work setting, but Marshall adds
that “by virtue its an interesting mix of students interacting”. There is no doubt that

combining these offices is both logical and natural.

Krista McCallum -Beatty, Director of ISFS, agrees fully with the common bond of both
offices. “I always say, we (OEA and ISFS) are two opposite sides of the same coin.”
explains McCallum-Beatty. In separate interviews both Marshall and McCallum-
Beatty described a hope and opportunity for synergy between the two offices: a
clear indicator of their common goal and cause.

One of the organized programs for the interacting of students that Krista McCallum-
Beatty hopes to develop is weekly coffee hours where student and faculty can
drop in to sit and chat and for international and domestic people on this campus to
really meet. She would also love to have visiting international researchers come to
coffee hour to feel more connected with the university and staff and other faculty
members. “Staff and department work really well together. It will create a good
vibe and I think it will make it a place students want to come to” Explains McCallum-
Beatty

The location of office is quite a “store front property” and Catherine Marshall hopes
this will draw in quite a crowd. Students of Ohio University have been trudging
across these bricks and mud of Park Place between Baker Center and the President’s
residence daily, in avoidance of the construction happening in preparation of the
launch of the new office. But don’t worry about ruining another pair of shoes. By
the time you put away your boots for winter, the street will be cleaned and the new
building opened. The building is set to open at the beginning of spring quarter. The
work began in the spring and summer of 2010 and it’s been a long but rewarding
process.

The opening of the building also provides for a space to admire the beautiful
campus. Windows showcase a breathtaking pond view and the walls of the building
will be adorned in beautiful and unique international artworks. Catherine Marshall
is excited by the indoor and outdoor space of the building. “We have visions about
how cool it could be to someday have rocking chairs and things outside on the
porch” Says Marshall.

Although the building is set to be a focal point on campus and a physical
representation of the work of these offices, it is the people inside that will provide
for the continued success and growth of these departments. In both the OEA and
ISFS, the sky is the limit when it comes to opportunities of making friends and
expanding your cultural boundaries. It is a learning process that can be unmatched
in any classroom. Krista McCallum-Beatty believes in the power of interaction
between international and domestic students. “Because the number of people here
is so large, some people never really get the opportunity to meet an international
student. We want every student to have a global experience, whether they leave
campus or not” Says McCallum-Beatty.

Schoonover Center for Communication, Future Home of Scripps

The banner that hangs outside of the old Baker building reads “Future home of
Scripps School of Communications.” However, beyond that, it seems to be a mystery
to most students who pass by it. Tom Daniels, the college’s building committee
chair and someone who is very involved in this extensive project, was willing to
share some insight and shed some light on plans for the upcoming building and
what exactly the “future home of Scripps” will be housing. His position entails
coordinating various colleges’ needs for the building and communicating those
needs to those in charge of designing and constructing the building. “My job is to
make sure we have in the facility what each school needs and it’s constructed in the
way we need it,” says Daniels, “I make sure we don’t ask for things we don’t need.”

Along with this aspect of the project, Daniels also works with and assists Mike West,
who is one of several project managers in the Office of Design and Construction.
West, who happens to be the project manager assigned to head this specific project
for the university, coordinates everyone who has a stake in this endeavor.

Daniels was very open to discussing this project, and really excited to explain how
the whole plan is finally coming into action. He has been around Ohio University
working closely with the school of communications for many years. Daniels started
as a professor here in the 80’s, then soon became the associate dean of the College
of Communications from 1990 to 1996. The next four years he moved up to the
position of associate provost, and then worked in the university planning office from
2002 to 2006. When he felt his work was finished with that department he returned
to teaching and was a professor of Communications Studies from 2006 until 2010,
when he took early retirement. Daniels now works solely with this project in order
to help get it underway.

20 years ago, when Daniels was in the position of associate dean of the College
of Communications, is when he recalls the dean discussing the proposal of a new
Communications building. It is apparent that the idea of this new building has
been floating around for a while now, but could not be fully put into play without
the very generous alumni donations and state funds that the university has just
recently received. Steven Schoonover, an Ohio University alumnus, was the largest
contributor, and therefore the new building will be named the Schoonover Center
for Communication.

From 2006 until August of 2007 the Office of Design and Construction took the
simple idea of creating this building and turned it into a solid plan and a complex
building proposal. In the late fall of 2009 the project continued to gain more
momentum as the board began organizing the plan even further and scheduling
each step of the building process. That is where they are right now in the
development, waiting for the state legislature to come through with the Capital
Bill in order to make even more advancements. The university is planning to have
construction started by fall of next year, with the overall goal of completing the
project some time between December of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. “When I
came my freshman year (2009-2010 school year) it was said that the building would
be finished during my four years here at the journalism school,” explains sophomore

and broadcast major Brooke Selis, “however, now I will be graduated by the time
the building is complete.” Although disappointed that the building will not be up
and running by time she has graduated, Brooke still expresses her enthusiasm for
the new building and the wide array of possibilities it will provide for future Scripps
students.

This building will be the first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) certified building here at Ohio University. This is a rating system developed
by the United States Green Building Council in order to rank how environmentally
friendly a building is. This means the Schoonover Center will be the first facility on
campus going green, a new and exciting step into the future for the university.

Daniels informed me that the designers would be going for the silver level of
certification, which is above the certified line but below the gold and platinum
levels. Each level is reached by obtaining a certain number of points. The point
system designates a certain number of credits for different environmental aspects
of the building, ranking the environmental performance of the facility. By making
Schoonover a LEEDS certified building, the university will be saving money and
energy, and also providing students and faculty in the building with better indoor
air quality. Though this is a monumental moment in the history of Ohio University
and its efforts for going green, it is far from the only advancement being made to the
new building of communications.

The new building will be connected to the Radio Television Center (RTVC), creating
even more space. The two buildings will house a combination of 9 different
buildings on campus that hold communications classrooms, offices, studios, and
even lecture halls. All communications will move into Schoonover and RTVC,
meaning that there will be space made in RTVC, Scripps, Seigfred, Lasher, Lindley,
Scott Quad, Central Classroom, Sing Tao Center, and the Research and Technology
Center (RTEC). Having all the colleges together creates so many more possibilities
and is so much more convenient, rather than walking across campus to get to
different communications classes. “We will be able to have a joined community, with
the core of everything in two buildings [Schoonover and RTVC],” explains Daniels.

Schoonover Center will have a broad range of different facilities among its five
floors. Some exciting new additions that will make the building a more relaxing
and comfortable environment to work in are a cyber café and a coffee shop, giving
students a place to rest between classes and get their work done while sipping on
a nice warm cup of coffee. “It may be nice to feel more of a community with the
Scripps students,” explains Selis, “and the café and coffee shop are both something
that will help make that happen.”

Other new unique facilities in the building will include a production studio, photo
studio, a brand new high-end listening lab, and also an art gallery where students
can spend their time enjoying the wonderful pieces of art put together by their
fellow students. The new center will also hold many grad student offices, the Dean’s
office suite, conference rooms, a few classrooms, an atrium, a 250-seat auditorium,

Lasher Lab, a large lecture hall, and many class laboratories for students to spend
their extra time and where they will have access to certain equipment.

By moving some of these offices into Schoonover, this clears out room in RTVC for
journalism classrooms, labs for journalism and visual communications, grad student
offices, and a new production area for WOUB. “One advantage I see with the new
building and it being connected to RTVC is that it will allow journalism students to
become more involved with the different options offered here such as WOUB,” Selis
states, “Just by being more familiar with the environment and building will improve
the number of students that become involved.” Also, journalism will be moved out
of Scripps and into Schoonover, making room for a grid lab from Scott Quad, grad
student offices, and more room for trying out ideas in Scripps.

This new facility will benefit the communications faculty and students in many
ways, and grant them with the opportunity to grow and advance in a new variety
of directions. This building has opened the gates of opportunity for facilities
the university never had a space for in previous years, such as public speaking
labs, a communications study research lab, and a new high-end listening facility.
The combination of these colleges into one building will also create space for a
wide range of opportunities never presented before. For instance, Journalism
will be able to redevelop the area where Lasher lab now sits into anything they
want or need it for, giving them the chance to experiment with new ideas. Visual
Communications will finally have their own studios without having to share space
with art. Information and Telecommunications (ITS) now has a limited amount
of space and their offices were located all across campus, but because of the
new communications center they can all be together in one place. “Geographic
consolidation will put us in a better position to do interdisciplinary programming,”
says Daniels.

With the way the communication industry is moving and the speed at which
technology is advancing, students will have to adapt to working together in different
aspects of their major. For instance, with the online magazines and newspaper
industry increasing, members of the visual communications college can begin to
work with journalism majors in producing videos that reinforce and liven up their
articles. This can all be done in one cooperative environment.

“This building creates greater potential for things to happen because people are
brought together in the same environment,” says Daniels. “The students will have a
place as a college to call home rather than their particular schools.”

The Schoonover center presents students with the amazing opportunity to work
together in a community of students striving for a similar goal: to be successful in
some aspect of the communications world.

Having all the different colleges together will also give students the opportunity to
explore different aspects of the broad communications field, and possibly help them
discover other potential majors they may be interested in. “Communications is the

most geographically dispersed college. Almost every college has it’s own facility
except for ours; now we will,” says Daniels. This gives students a wide abundance
of possibilities and options to explore different types of communications and find
their true passion. Ohio University has a motto, and that is that we are “the path to
promise.” By putting these schools together we are making it easier for students to
find what they would really enjoy doing with the rest of their life, and working to
make that our promise, the promise of Ohio University, would be a wonderful goal
to strive for.