To many a building is just a structure—something that shelters people from the elements and provides a place to rest and eat. Buildings are constructed for special needs to carry out a purpose. Hospitals look different than elementary schools with function determining design. Yet sometimes a building takes on more than just a function. A house becomes a home, a classroom becomes a place for self-expression and growth and a lobby becomes a centerpiece for friendship.
As Carlow University grows, its facilities must grow, too. Over the summer, a number of new additions popped up on campus. “We have been investing almost one million dollars for at least the past several years in facilities,” says Jacqueline Travisano, vice president for finance and operations.
Last year, administrators invited students and faculty to meet with them regarding their needs, says Scott Benack, project manager for Carlow.
“The students wanted a more homey environment with more comfortable areas to sit in with good lighting,” he says, explaining that much of the design work kept this idea in mind.
Faculty members expressed a need for updated labs and equipment and more offices.
“The Carlow community is very collaborative. We do seek to hear the voices of faculty and staff and students,” Travisano says. “It would be a shame to invest Carlow’s limited resources and not have it be functional.”
Travisano knows the details of every project on campus and proves to be a great tour guide through the four newly renovated areas on the Carlow campus.
The day after commencement, the buzz of saws and thump of hammers echoed across campus. Construction crews demolished and rebuilt. All four projects finished on time and before the students arrived on campus.
FRANCES WARDE HALL LOBBY & LOUNGE
“The old entryway had another set of doors,” says Travisano as she enters the foyer of Frances Warde Hall through a set of automatic doors.
It is a few weeks before the students return to Carlow University’s Oakland campus and Travisano surveys the work as the four construction projects come to a close.
Travisano pulls out a swipe card to enter the second set of doors in Frances Warde Hall. The automatic doors swoosh open. Prior to this renovation, the doors weren’t automatic or ADA compliant. There’s also a little more room in between the two doors and the security guard has a larger window.
As soon as Travisano enters the second set of doors, she’s face to face with a big screen TV. This is the welcome center of the lobby. This TV will post announcements on the screen that students need to know.
It’s amazing what a few couches, cabinets, window treatments, paint, and chairs can do for a room. The once institutional lobby, looks like a comfy living room in a home. Lavender paint brightens the room. Custom wood panels cover the bottom half of the walls. Tile, carpet, and amber wood enhance the warmth, balancing the colors.
“People are very happy and upbeat that the facilities are being paid attention to,” says Gary Smith, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. “If you have a nice place to work it feels good, it is easier to come to class.”
During the planning, Benack says, they selected some materials because of functionality, but didn’t sacrifice looks. The wood panels, which provide balance to the pastel walls, are there because they’re durable—the carts students use to move gashed the drywall. The tile in the foyer proves tough to damage.
The complete facelift to the lobby was a $300,000 investment.
While Benack exudes confidence about the projects now, he says during the construction he often worried that the renovations could finish late. At the outset, he feared what kind of pipes and electrical wiring lurked behind the old plaster walls. Frances Warde Hall opened its doors originally in 1961. The new hall replaced the five student houses that served as the University’s first dorms.
Benack reflects upon the evolutionary nature of construction and the lobby in particular. He recalls the architect mentioning that a fireplace might be a good addition to the room. No one had thought about that, but once it was mentioned everyone loved the idea.
After entering the lobby, Travisano hangs a right, walking down the ceramic tiled hall to reach the fireplace. Only an expert could tell the stones aren’t real. The fabricated stones are better because they are more consistent than real stones, making them better able to insulate. The electric fireplace produces some heat, but it’s mostly there to enhance the homey feeling. More couches, chairs, and a big flat screen TV complete the room.
The lobby of Frances Warde Hall acts as central place where students feel like they belong to a part of a community. And it is community that administrators considered when they evaluated the construction projects.
“[Faculty and students] feel as if they count and that’s important because they are part of the whole. It’s not like ideas are handed down from on high,” Smith explains.
Even though it’s a few weeks before school starts, a group of people sits in the chairs, murmuring. It’s the architect, construction managers, and facilities manager discussing the closing project. Already the lobby draws people to it.
CURRAN HALL NURSING SKILLS LAB
Entering the fourth floor of Curran Hall feels like leaving a university and stepping into
a hospital ward. Students always experienced this change in setting. It was only last year, though, that students felt they were leaving Carlow for a 1950s hospital ward.
Nursing Skills Lab in Curran Hall
Michele Upvall guides the tour of the new lab. Upvall— associate dean and director of the School of Nursing—recently returned from a nursing conference in Russia. She beams with pride as she walks up to the glass surrounding the lab.
She steps into what looks like an intensive care unit in a hospital. Curtains divide six beds from one another. The bright blue and orange composite vinyl tile stands out against the crisp white beds.
Upvall admits that administrators and faculty members knew they needed to update their labs so the nursing students remain competitive in the work place.
“We’re always looking for safe environments to practice nursing skills,” Upvall explains.
And Carlow University always provides a safe environment. Students practice drawing blood on mannequin arms, for example. Advances in medical simulation mean that Carlow can expose its students to more advanced simulators in the classroom.
In a simulator lab, while a student works on a writhing, talking mannequin in a small room, her classmates stand behind double-sided glass, observing, or watch on live stream video. For example, a nursing student might check the mannequin’s vitals when he suddenly goes into cardiac arrest. The mannequin becomes unconscious as his pulse slows and his breath rasp, just like a real person. The student needs to react quickly to help the “patient.” A student might fumble and the teacher can make the mannequin die. Later, the student watches the tape of his/her performance, evaluating what went wrong and what went right.
Other schools of nursing in the Pittsburgh area that consulted on the development of Carlow’s new lab included the University of Pittsburgh and its WISER Center. The WISER Center was one of the first simulator labs and the center’s staff was extremely helpful in providing advice and guidance. Duquesne University and Robert Morris University also cordially opened their labs to Carlow faculty.
“When you take students to a hospital setting, they may not be exposed to every disease process, but we can expose them to different scenarios and then they have a sense of it even if they don’t see it in a clinical setting,” Upvall says.
Patrick Joyce, vice president of Advancement and Government Relations, echoed Upvall’s sentiments: “If you were in training [in a hospital] and the patient had a severe problem they’d yank that student out of there and put the best person in.” With the mannequins, students deal with those serious situations.
With these new mannequins, the nursing school needed a new ward. The new lab also houses a computer lab and an office for the new lab skills manager, Nancy Jo Keller.
This $1.5 million project garnered special funding thanks to Joyce’s work. Two years ago, the nursing school began planning the updates to its skills lab and they knew it needed special funding because the lab had to be state-of-the-art and have room to include new technologies as they arise.
When Joyce solicited donors he says it was easy because Carlow’s nursing program reputation is well known.
“Carlow’s nursing program is one of the oldest and most respected programs with more than 4,000 of its nurses serving in the Western Pennsylvanian region and around the country. Carlow provides the nursing leaders,” he says.
Many organizations recognized this and contributed money for the new lab. The Eden Hall Foundation, the DSF Charitable Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, the A.J. and Sigismunda Palumbo Charitable Trust, the George I. Alden Trust, Highmark BCBS, the Bozzone Family Foundation, the Rust Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry through the Three Rivers Workforce Investment all donated money to the lab.
“They responded to the critical and increasing health care needs of our region and in recognition of the ability of Carlow’s nursing program to serve those needs,” Joyce says. “While they were impressed with the history and growth of Carlow, they were moved to invest in the vision of the program our nursing educators proposed.”
Not all of the funding contributed to the lab and its equipment.
“Part of the money that we’ve raised is for a consultant who is helping our nursing skills lab coordinator and faculty to integrate this impressive new investment throughout the curriculum,” Joyce says. He notes that the lab will eventually be used to help in-service nurses sharpen their skills and in programs for middle and high school students considering careers in science and health care.
COFFEE BAR AND LOUNGE IN THE A.J. PALUMBO HALL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Travisano pulls open the Fifth Avenue side doors to A.J. Palumbo Hall of Science and Technology and immediately a funky coffee bar across the lobby draws attention. With its colorful tile and artistic lighting, the coffee bar rivals any coffee shop.
Celtic Cafe in AJ Palumbo Hall
“Students and faculty said it was very difficult to get across Fifth to get food,” Travisano explains. “Wayne Burke [president and CEO of Aladdin Foods] made it possible to construct a coffee bar.”
Aladdin Food Management Services had a pre-made coffee bar that it donated to the University and Carlow’s facilities management employees updated the lobby area adjacent to the coffee shop. Employees replaced stained and outdated carpet with new maroon carpet and comfy maroon chairs and tables. An electronic message board also hangs in the area to provide students with updated information. The new coffee bar and study lounge cost $150,000, some of which Burke gifted.
Travisano heads over to the alcove with the new furniture. Facilities employees also put a fresh coat of paint on the area, refreshing its feel. She gazes at the room. If something were askew, she’d know. Benack says that throughout the process Travisano continually impressed him with everything she knew about all the projects.
“I think it’s real important for all the students that they have a place to go in between classes and socialize. The commuter students who have a class in the morning and evening and are here all day, they need somewhere to sit,” Benack says.
Benack takes night courses and after only a few days of classes, he reported that students lounge in the study area and coffee bar in A.J. Palumbo Hall. In his own experience as a student in this building, he’d often find that he wanted a drink or something to eat that didn’t come from a vending machine.
The University held a contest where students had an opportunity to name the coffee bar. The winner? Celtic Café.
FIFTH FLOOR OF ANTONIAN HALL
Travisano flips on the lights and walks down the hallway, poking her head into empty offices. Soon, psychology faculty members will be sitting in these offices with blue carpeting and warm wood furniture.
Antonian Hall - 5th Floor Renovation
Carlow had a wonderful problem, she explains.
There was not enough space for growing programs like the psychology and counseling department. This program needed space for its burgeoning student and faculty population.
As she walks down the empty corridors, she passes an office where a few men arrange furniture.
Travisano and others wondered how they could provide the space for the psychology program on the campus. They discovered an old TV studio on the fifth floor of Antonian Hall that looked as if it hadn’t been used since the 1970s. This discovery worked out well; the rest of the department is on that floor as well.
The turquoise walls of the TV studio and the Formica tile looked outdated and served little purpose. Even if it were to function as a TV studio it needed to be updated. Contractors ripped out the walls and flooring and the once unused, antiquated TV station turned into six new offices, a conference room, a reception area, and a graduate student office and lounge.
The $100,000 investment in the new offices shows how during the planning the University was able to identify underutilized space and convert it into useful areas.
Bob Reed, chair of the Department of Counseling Psychology, says that since he started in 1995, the department has been expanding. In 2002 with the new master’s program, 150 new students joined the program. Now with the new Psy.D, more students and faculty needed space.
“We were kind of scattered about on the fifth floor,” Reed says. “The architect did a good job using the space available to us.”
The lounge provides students with a place to go between classes, but Reed explains that the American Psychological Associations requires that all psychology departments have student lounges.
In addition to a few overstuffed blue couches and chairs, there is a desk with two computers so that graduate students have a quiet place to work.
“[The new offices] consolidate the department in such a fashion that it gives us an identity on campus and I think that strengthens it,” Reed says.
It didn’t take long to fill the offices. The department even hired a graduate secretary, finally, to help students. Only one remains open, which Reed hopes a new faculty member will soon occupy.
Carlow University is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, 3624 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. (267-284-5000)
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the
US. Secretary of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
