Construction officially began on the new Foundation Heights residence facility at 11:45 a.m. Friday, Oct. 6 during the dormitory’s groundbreaking ceremony.
The event was on-site between Brown Hall and the C.E. Gaines Center. Many student participants and community officials were in attendance, reflecting the large amount of student involvement in the planning and design of this building.
Kasseem Smith, senior business administration major, and Courtney Barfield, senior sociology major, are two members of the Student Committee on Construction who volunteered to work on this project. “The university’s giving me an opportunity to make my voice heard. A lot of schools wouldn’t allow a student to be over $800,000 worth of interior designing. They just build dorms without considering the students’ opinions,” said Smith, who served as the lead student on the committee, and as chair on the Interior Design Subcommittee.
Barfield decided to join the committee just before the end of the last academic school year when she received a campus email seeking interested students. “I wanted to have a say in something that would be here after I was gone, something that I could look at and say, ‘Hey, I helped,”‘ she said.
Foundation Heights, which will be a 114,000 square-foot, 316-bed living facility, was given its name in honor of the Winston-Salem State University Foundation and its efficiency in meeting the university’s needs. Every suite and apartment will include a living room and full-sized kitchen, and residents will have access to a community computer lab, fitness center and laundry room.
It was up to student committee members like Smith and Barfield, though, to make sure that each of these features were pleasing to the eye and were able to help occupants feel comfortable, safe and at home.
“We were involved in every single bit; they asked for our input,” said Barfield. “If we didn’t like something or felt students wouldn’t like something, we said so, and they made adjustments. We wanted to make sure that the students would be comfortable, so we thought about what could be better. Freshmen don’t like the little closets in Moore, so let’s have closets like in Rams Commons,” Barfield said.
Smith agreed that improving on problems that students have encountered with other dorms was a key focus, so during construction meetings, he advocated for more stable furniture, better beds, better insulation against sound and echoes, and brighter lights in the corridors, all of which were granted. The committee seemed highly concerned with seeing that every detail was aesthetically pleasing, despite working with fewer funds than had been available on past projects.
“Each wing has a different color theme,” Smith said.”All the appliances are black. We didn’t have as much money to work on Foundation Heights as they had for Gleason-Hairston, so we had to try to find a way to work on a tighter budget and still make it nice.”
But even with less money, Smith was pleased with the minor details that they were able to get worked into the blueprints. “We got a fireplace in the lobby,” he added with a smile. The most innovative and attractive aspect of this dorm, however, is sure to be the eight-person mega suites created for “academic interest groups.” Each suite will include four bedrooms, four bathrooms, one full kitchen, and a more spacious living room with two couches.
“[The mega suites] are aimed at organizations and social groups, like fraternities, sororities, the SGA, or The News Argus,” Smith said.
The suites will not be designated to any of these organizations, but they are available if they decide that they would like to take advantage of them.
According to Smith and Barfield, there are two main reasons that the student body should be excited about the groundbreaking and construction of Foundation Heights.
“Our university is actually taking a step to improve the housing situation on campus, Smith said. “Students take for granted what we have here. The school is trying hard to accommodate the students. We may not have enough for everybody, but we never will [as the school grows.” And as Barfield summed it up: “It’s a hot place to stay.” Foundation Heights is scheduled to open its doors Fall 2007.