Members of the Honors program, and the students who are living in Clayton Hall, have seen the recent renovations that took place over the summer of 2021.
Madeline Worcester, a senior Integrated Language Arts major, explains what it was like to live in Clayton Hall prior to the renovations.
“Clayton’s living conditions, in short, have been vaguely unpleasant for the most part. I have most often heard the building described as ‘nasty,’” Worcester said.
In an effort to combat these issues, plans were set in place to make the residence hall more suitable and accessible to students.
The planning for the renovations began in February of 2021 and lasted until May, when the building process began. There was a list of different issues that the building committee wanted to address.
The reason Clayton Hall was chosen for the renovations was for the configuration and space of the floors.
“We were able to make the change in such a way that provided that bathroom, but didn’t reduce or change the number of students that could occupy the dorms,” Ewing said. “So we were able to improve it without having to take space or reduce the number of students.”
There are also plans for the other seven floors of Clayton to be renovated in the same way as the second floor.
Although the renovations were able to be completed in time for when students moved in, there were a few setbacks that occurred due to COVID-19.
As explained by Ewing, COVID-19 caused a supply-chain delay in the materials needed for the renovations leading into last-minute changes in the building plans.
“We had originally intended to put fiberglass showers in, that were one piece, like you would maybe have at home. Those were delayed by about four weeks and weren’t going to arrive until after Sept. 1. So we had to actually change our plan,” Ewing stated. “Instead of putting those fiberglass showers in, we went to a tiled shower, that was able to have that tile installed quicker and keep us on schedule.”
With the new renovations on the Honors floor, students have been enjoying the newly updated rooms.
Sarah Yeaste, a junior English and Creative Writing major, who has been living on the second floor of Clayton this semester, shares her opinion of the renovations.
“Living in the renovated dorms has honestly been really nice, especially since this is my first time living on campus,” Yeaste said.
According to Ewing, the complete renovations of Clayton are still currently in the works, with plans to add air conditioning to the rooms.
“We haven’t completely identified the scope of where that’s going to happen,” Ewing concluded. “But we do intend on making that refresh a priority as well.”