A state-of-the-art facility named in honor of former president Dr. Royce Money and his wife, Pam
By this humble blogger’s count, the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center features 107 exterior-facing windows (give or take a few dozen, depending on what you consider a window versus a mere pane of glass), most of them on the second floor.
Here’s a sneak peek at what Abilene Christian University will look like through these glass portals when students, faculty and staff begin using the facility next semester.
A cluster of fabric, carpet and paint samples in Mary Reyes' office gives a glimpse of the colors students, faculty and staff will see in the wellness center.
While construction crews install the floors and ceilings in the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center, it’s up to Mary Reyes to determine how they’ll look when students first walk through the doors.
Reyes, the Abilene Christian University director of campus aesthetics, and her student worker, Alex Potess, for several weeks have been working full-time on what materials, colors and furnishings will decorate the wellness center within the allotted budget.
The decisions balance appearance, practicality and cost, Reyes says.
“The recreation center is vibrant and energetic and needs to convey that,” she said, whereas space for the Medical and Counseling Care Center needs to be “a comforting environment. That’s a place where students know it’s safe. You see more earth tones over there.”
Final decisions have been made on furniture choices, from lobby seating to classroom chairs to counseling couches and office furnishings, while plans are taking shape on such items as wall color and flooring surfaces.
“Everything from floor to ceiling,” Reyes said, “that conversation has happened.”
After being delayed a week by this winter’s ice storm, Abilene Christian University officials and contractor HOAR Construction have agreed on an accelerated completion schedule that is projected to allow the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center open in time for the first classes of the fall semester.
Weather delays had led to a projected opening date in early September — at least one week past the ideal opening date of Aug. 29, the first day of classes. By accelerating the timetable, construction now is expected to be finished ideally by mid August, said Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson, vice president for Student Life. That would ideally allow about two weeks for faculty and staff to move in to their new offices, as well as for new workout equipment to be installed in the facility.
View from the jogging trail, looking northeast over the leisure pool.
Piece by piece, the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is taking shape, inside and out.
Paint is on the walls in parts of the new facility, meaning that completion is not far behind in several key areas, including the Abilene Christian University Medical and Counseling Care Center. Read on for more updates and photos.
Monica Parodi, junior nutrition major from Honduras, talks with Dr. Kerri Hart about applying for a nutrition counselor position in the new wellness center. "The Counseling Center is going to be good experience," Parodi said. "Clinical (experience) is really important."
The hiring process is beginning in earnest for the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
More than 40 student positions will be filled before the end of the school year, and two-thirds of the center’s new leadership team is working with the Abilene Christian University Career Center to help students polish resumes and cover letters.
Joel Swedlund and Dr. Kerri Hart joined Career Services executive director Mary Ellen Olson and other staff in front of the Campus Center this afternoon to give students more information and point them to instructions for applying for one of the dozens of new positions.
Open positions include lifeguards, nutrition counselors, trainers and others.
The deadline for applications is a week from Friday, April 29, with interviews occurring the next week. The staff hopes to have the center’s student team in place before finals week, which begins with dead day May 9. About 70 students will be selected for interviews, Swedlund said.
For more information about applying for a job in the wellness center, students should visit the Career Center blog. The application process is entirely electronic, Swedlund said, in keeping with efforts for the new facility to promote environmental wellness.
Nearly 90 applicants have been whittled down to five finalists seeking to become the first executive director of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
Two candidates have visited the Abilene Christian University campus for interviews, while three others have been interviewed over the phone, said Dr. Jeff Arrington, assistant vice president of Student Life. He said he expects a final decision before the end of the month.
“We hope to have appointed the executive director by the end of April, and we hope for that person to visit campus early in May,” Arrington said. “I want this person to be here and start connecting with students on a broader basis” before the end of the semester.
The executive director would officially take over his or her duties June 1, the beginning of ACU’s 2012 fiscal year.
The two finalists interviewed on campus met with about 10 faculty and staff members, as well as officers from the Students’ Association, Arrington said.
The executive director will be the top administrator of the facility, responsible for overseeing the budget, policies and training processes in the wellness center. He will directly oversee Dr. Kerri Hart, who will be director of training and fitness programming, and Joel Swedlund, who will be director of facility operations.
The Abilene Christian University Counseling Center and the ACU Medical Clinic once shared an office suite in McKinzie Hall, a nod to the offices’ overlap in caring for students physical and mental health needs. Both outgrew their space, however, and the offices separated to different floors in the residence hall about five years ago.
In a few months, however, the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center will reunite them under a new name: the Medical and Counseling Care Center.
“I’m looking forward to getting back together with them,” said Steve Rowlands, director of the counseling center. “We’re a good team now, but I see us being a better team.”
The MACCC, as it’s already being called, would occupy the northwest corner of the wellness center, with a separate entrance to provide privacy for the center’s patients and clients. Its inclusion is part of the university’s effort to emphasize the wellness aspect of the facility.
“It’ll be good to have access to the other equipment,” said Dr. Ellen Little, director of the medical clinic, “so students have a better idea how the heart, soul, strength and mind work together.”
The offices won’t be gaining any space — the medical clinic will actually lose some — but both offices will have the benefit of using space designed specifically for their use, Rowlands said, as well as a greater ability to work together for students with needs for both medical and counseling help.
“I’m looking forward to a better emphasis on wellness in general,” Rowlands said. “This will give us great power and energy to do that.”
Like the rest of the wellness center’s future occupants, the offices will be awaiting ACU’s obtaining a certificate of occupancy before they can move to their new space, a particularly delicate operation for the medical clinic, which was hoping to move before the semester — and the attending influx of student-patients — begins.
Welcome Week begins Aug. 22, and classes begin one week later, while the center is scheduled for completion about the same time, barring any further weather delays.
“Starting Welcome Week, we get busy, and we stay busy the entire semester,” Little said. “That’ll be challenge.”
Over the past week, crews have been installing glass windows surrounding the second floor of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center on the Abilene Christian University campus. The windows have only been installed on the south side of the building thus far. Each section of the exterior is in a different phase of the general steel-fireproofing-drywall-waterproofing-brick-windows process. More photos after the jump.
Construction of Moody Coliseum and the adjacent Gibson Center seen from the air.
The construction of the Royce and Pam Money Student Recreation and Wellness Center is of course not the first time the area of campus north of the central mall has seen a major construction project. In 1968, crews built Moody Coliseum and the Gibson Health and Physical Education Center.
Dr. Kerri Hart — whose father, as we’ve mentioned, was chair of the Exercise Science and Health Department at the time — has provided some photos of the construction Abilene Christian University experienced 43 years ago: