The University of Indianapolis not only broke ground on the Health Pavilion this summer, but also began its routine repairs of the year. Every summer, the focus is on one dorm building. This year, that building was Crowe Hall.
“Crowe Hall was the final building that did not have overhead lighting,” said Vice President for Student and Campus Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangeli. “The last few summers we have been going in and [fixing this]. Last summer, we did Cory Bretz and Cravens and the summer before we did Warren Hall. So, we are finally rounding out our updates.”
Crowe Hall now has updated bathrooms, carpet, heating and air conditioning units in each room and drapes.
“Crowe Hall kind of got a renovation this year,” Vitangeli said. “The rest of the buildings got general maintenance: Painting, cleaning carpeting and cleaning air conditioning units.”
Area Coordinator Johnathan Ferraro said Crowe Hall saw many major improvements.
“The sprinkle system was updated, and overhead lighting was added to each of the rooms in the building,” Ferraro said. “These two major projects, as well as a few smaller ones, will help make the building even more comfortable and welcoming for our residents.”
The groundskeeping team partnered with TeenWorks, a group of high school students doing community service, renovated the grounds work around the Bell Tower in front of Ransburg. The team also removed dead trees on campus and replaced them with new ones.
Every summer, the parking lots are also re-sealed. The Shelbybowl lot will be sealed for extra parking since the Health Pavilion has taken the land where a parking lot once was. The university is considering a shuttle, like what was done during graduation, in the church lot behind the McDonald’s on Keystone Ave during prime hours of parking in the university lots.
The University Dining Services, formerly known as PFS, got a face-lift as well.
“A brand new dishwasher and dish room area [was added]” Vitangeli said. “The accumulator, where your place your tray or plates is all brand new; it looks really nice down there. We re-did that room with some painting and plastic on the walls so it’s not as messy. [We] covered the silverware thrower bin.”
UDS also received a new dishwasher, which is more ecofriendly and conserves water. It will soak silverware for a certain amount of time, so students will simply be able to put everything onto the accumulator. New grills in the kitchen were also bought to allow for better updates.
Students can expect a few changes as the school year progresses. The University Police, currently in Schwitzer 208, will be moving into the old Music Annex across Shelby Street after the start of the school year. With the change, the IT department on campus had to extend the wireless out on onto Shelby Street and then circle back onto campus. This way, the police department was still able to use the campus wireless.
For any student who has every had a wireless issue in the their dorm, each room now has an individual wireless router which will be turned on at the beginning of the school semester. This will help with high traffic times and the architecture of certain buildings that do not always allow signals to go through.
“This [new routers] is especially good for Central and East with the concrete walls,” Vitangeli said. “Also, each building now has a UIndy Guest wireless access. It used to just be available in Schwitzer.”
The timeline for many other renovations such as the library, apartments and a card swipe system in the freshman and eventually all dorms is still on the table for this upcoming year.
