Construction at UConn Episode 1: South Campus

Tran­scrip­tion:

Tabitha Bak­er: Liv­ing at south cam­pus at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut has always been thought to be a lux­u­ry, but in real­i­ty, this year, it has­n’t been. South cam­pus has always been known for being some of the most lux­u­ry liv­ing on cam­pus. There’s suites with big liv­ing rooms. They have their own bath­rooms, two rooms with two beds in each. It’s enough for four peo­ple to live. It just sounds like a great place to live. The suites are known for hav­ing real­ly nice win­dows to let in. Nat­ur­al light, air con­di­tion­ing, heat, all the good stuff. But this year, peo­ple liv­ing at, uh south cam­pus at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut have been expe­ri­enc­ing some changes, some not so good changes. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut is expand­ing south cam­pus res­i­dence halls by adding more hous­ing next to the cur­rent build­ings that are.

Tabitha Bak­er: Already there, which sounds like a great idea.

Tabitha Bak­er: Adding anoth­er din­ing hall is also in the ideas. But stu­dents liv­ing at south cam­pus right now, well, let’s say they def­i­nite­ly know that there’s con­struc­tion going on and some changes being made right out­side their windows.

Tabitha Bak­er: So I’m here today with Jake Mac­far­lane who lives at south cam­pus his senior year. So I under­stand you were pret­ty excit­ed about liv­ing here your senior year, weren’t you?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Hey, yeah. Thank you for hav­ing me. I’m, uh, def­i­nite­ly excit­ed to be liv­ing at south this year. It’s a nice cam­pus, uh, nice part of cam­pus. I real­ly like the din­ing, um, and.

Tabitha Bak­er: I know a lot of peo­ple want to live here, so it’s tak­en pret­ty quick­ly, isn’t it?

Jake Mac­far­lane: It was def­i­nite­ly com­pet­i­tive to get a room. Um, but, yeah, I’m glad I made it in. Real­ly enjoy­ing it this year. It’s weird. It’s already halfway through, but, yeah, hav­ing a good time, enjoy­ing my room­mates and everything.

Tabitha Bak­er: What about besides the room­mates? Have you noticed any­thing out­side going on?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Yeah, uh, def­i­nite­ly. It’s a lit­tle obvi­ous that some­thing’s going on out­side of this build­ing. Um, yeah. Uh, this new res­i­dence hall being built, uh, it looks very nice. I’m sure it’ll be nice once it’s ful­ly set up, but I def­i­nite­ly have a cou­ple of complaints.

Tabitha Bak­er: What do you think? How’s it been? Is it loud?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Is it m def­i­nite­ly loud. Unfor­tu­nate­ly loud, espe­cial­ly ear­ly in the morn­ing. Um, even this morn­ing, I’m truth­ful­ly not feel­ing 100%, uh, and hav­ing to deal with finals on top of that. It was great. Hav­ing to get wok­en up by a jack­ham­mer at 06:00 in the morn­ing or what­ev­er it was.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, no, uh, it’s lit­er­al­ly, like, right out­side your win­dow, so it’s just crazy to see it as I’m look­ing right now. How does this affect your dai­ly rou­tine, all the noise. How do you feel? It changes how you wake up or sleep. How long does it last?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Yeah, it’s def­i­nite­ly very ran­dom, which I would almost appre­ci­ate if it was less ran­dom, uh, just so I would know at what times it would be espe­cial­ly loud. But it’s real­ly just ran­dom. Uh, some days I’ll wake up and not hear a thing. Oth­er days, I’ll wake up and hear noise the entire day. Um, but, yeah, I would say oth­er than the noise, it’s def­i­nite­ly a lit­tle bit of a pain, uh, hav­ing to walk all the way around the con­struc­tion site in order to, uh, get to my class­es. Def­i­nite­ly not some­thing that I was expect­ing when I first moved into south, but, um, yeah, here we are.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: And so, are your room­mates notic­ing there’s a lot of noise?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Yeah, they’ve com­plained about it a lot as well. Um, we’re deal­ing with it. At the end of the day, I’m hap­py with south, but, yeah, it would be nice if I did­n’t have to deal with this. And it’s a lit­tle unfor­tu­nate, too, because, uh, I actu­al­ly met my room­mates in the field right out­side where they’re now doing the con­struc­tion. We, um, first, uh, hung out, played some foot­ball, uh, and that’s how I real­ly got to know them. And now I’d say they’re prob­a­bly my best friends here. So it’s a lit­tle sad to see, uh, the lawn dis­ap­pear, uh, get replaced by this build­ing. But, um, yeah, so since you’re on.

Tabitha Bak­er: The first floor, do you notice there’s a lot of peo­ple work­ing around you?

Jake Mac­far­lane: Yeah, it’s a lit­tle strange. Uh, truth­ful­ly, most of the time, we have the blinds down on the win­dows because they’re just con­struc­tion work­ers direct­ly out­side, which is some­times a lit­tle strange. Feels like a lit­tle bit of an inva­sion of pri­va­cy. Um, but I’m sure they’re here just to get their work done. But, uh, yeah, def­i­nite­ly would be nice if I could use my win­dows a bit more often.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, and I know it’s just, like, such an eye­sore, too. I know. Just look­ing out­side is just so absolute­ly, so busy all the. So. Well, thank you so much for your time.

Jake Mac­far­lane: Yeah, of course. Appre­ci­ate it.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Thank you.

Tabitha Bak­er: Now I’m joined by anoth­er south res­i­dent. This is Haley Bernier. She lives at South Wil­son hall, just. Like Jake McFar­lane. And today she’s going to tell us a lit­tle bit about the cement pour­ing. That they got a bunch of emails about.

Joen Echev­er­ria: It’s so annoying.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Real­ly? Yeah.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Uh, the week­ends are my time to. Sleep in and decom­press after a long.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Week of class­es and just doing every­thing I need to do to be a suc­cess­ful stu­dent. And it kind of feels dis­re­spect­ful that they’re not appre­ci­at­ing my time or the fact that those cou­ple extra hours of sleep make a big dif­fer­ence for me.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes.

Tabitha Bak­er: And even on Sat­ur­days peo­ple go out and it’s like you wake up, you don’t want to wake up to cement pour­ing. It’s so obnox­ious. Understood.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Exact­ly. Even if I was­n’t going out on Fri­days there’s been times when I haven’t gone out on a Fri­day and I still want to sleep in the next day. It’s just you’re that tired. You just want to relax. And um, we do so much for UConn. You’d think they would give us a cou­ple hours to relax in the morning.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: And the cement pours is that like real­ly loud?

Joen Echev­er­ria: It’s very loud. Um, it def­i­nite­ly would wake up the heav­i­est sleep­er for sure because I’m some­body who’s a very heavy sleep­er and it wakes me up for sure. Um, and it’s just annoy­ing because they did­n’t even ask us. They just told us what was hap­pen­ing real­ly. It would be bet­ter if stu­dents had an opin­ion in the deci­sions that were being made for them at least.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: Uh, because I mean the week­days is one thing but the week­ends is just so unfortunate.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: Too bad that you guys have to.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Deal with that dur­ing the week­days. I would be more under­stand­ing. Um, even then I think at 05:00 a.m. Is a lit­tle extreme. Um, I mean the first round of class­es starts at 08:00 a.m. So who’s wak­ing up at five? But the week­ends is just kind of ridicu­lous. I mean the din­ing halls don’t even open until what? Eleven on the weekends.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Uh, so what am I sup­posed to do if I’m wok­en up at five? Sit there for 6 hours and wait for the din­ing hall to open?

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah that’s uh, ridiculous.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Regard­less of the noise. I mean I could try sleep­ing with head­phones in um to block out the noise and maybe that could help. But then the shak­ing from it. The beds shake a lot any­way they’re not very stur­dy, the dorm beds. And then there just being some­thing in the out­side that’s caus­ing the ground to move so much. It’s just shak­ing so much that it’s impos­si­ble to stay uh, asleep.

Joen Echev­er­ria: It’s like almost ridiculous.

Joen Echev­er­ria: It feels like some­body’s going up to my bed and grab­bing the side and just shak­ing me awake. Like I remem­ber the first time it hap­pened. I thought that my room­mate was try­ing to wake me up. And it was at 05:00 a.m.. Yeah. And I was like, what are you doing? Leave me alone. And there’s no one there.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Oh, my God.

Joen Echev­er­ria: I know.

Joen Echev­er­ria: So bad.

Joen Echev­er­ria: That’s how strong it is. So it’s very irritating.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: That’s terrible.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: I mean, I just hear, like, the refrig­er­a­tors are just, like, shak­ing and they’re lit­er­al­ly shak­ing. I’ve heard that from a cou­ple of oth­er peo­ple. It’s just insane.

Joen Echev­er­ria: And it’s too bad. I mean, I’ve had stuff lit­er­al­ly fall over before.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Really?

Joen Echev­er­ria: From the shak­ing? Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: It’s like an earthquake.

Joen Echev­er­ria: It is kind of like an earth­quake. And it’s scary when it’s night, like, pitch dark out like that and the sun’s just start­ing to rise, and all of a sud­den you’re just wok­en up by you don’t know what. It’s scary.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Joen Echev­er­ria: I mean, like, first instinct, you might think some­body’s try­ing to break into your dorm room.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: Oh, my God.

Joen Echev­er­ria: So imme­di­ate­ly the guard goes up.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: That’s ter­ri­ble. Well, thank you so much for telling me how this has been.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Of course, I’m glad to be able to con­tribute and hope­ful­ly get the stu­dent voic­es heard a lit­tle bit more.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Thank you.

Tabitha Bak­er: All right, so I’m also here today with, uh, Joen Echev­er­ria And today she’s going to be talk­ing just a lit­tle bit about liv­ing at south, what it’s been like, and just the changes that she’s noticed through­out the year.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Um, hi. Yes, thank you for hav­ing me. Well, like, liv­ing in south, it’s been great, but also, there’s been a lot of down­sides. In the begin­ning of the semes­ter, we got an email say­ing that every day at 05:00 a.m. Con­struc­tion was going to start. And when I orig­i­nal­ly chose that room, that’s not what I expect­ed. I expect­ed to live in a nice suite with my best friends. But there was a down­side with the construction.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah. And I know, I under­stand you’re a biol­o­gy major.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes. Okay.

Tabitha Bak­er: And so all your class­es are the oth­er side of cam­pus, right?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes, correct.

Tabitha Bak­er: So has it been hard­er to get to class?

Joen Echev­er­ria: It has been. Um. The con­struc­tion has, like, there’s path­ways that I can’t take any­more that I would orig­i­nal­ly take. I was like, when get­ting south, I was think­ing about, like, oh, this is the way I’m going to go, and I’ll make it eas­i­er. But with the con­struc­tion, so many ways are blocked off, so it takes even longer to get to class. All the way at Gantt or Tory life science.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: And a lot of your class­es are Tory life sci­ence, I think.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes. Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: Ah, that must be tough, because I know, uh, I was look­ing out the win­dows, and there’s dif­fer­ent paths, like you said, like extra paths. But I guess they can be dan­ger­ous some­times, too. Aren’t they steep and muddy?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes. There’s one path that stu­dents cre­at­ed behind a fence. That’s like a short­cut per se, because the path that you would take is blocked by fences, so it is steep and mud­dy and behind a fence, and there’s branch­es and sharp branch­es and leaves, so it is dan­ger­ous to get there.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, that’s unfor­tu­nate. And espe­cial­ly since your class­es are so far, do you notice that you have to leave a lit­tle bit ear­li­er before you go to class?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes, def­i­nite­ly. Because going through those weird path­ways that stu­dents made instead of going through across Gilbert Road, which I would do, is just way more difficult.

Tabitha Bak­er: Yeah, that’s so unfortunate.

Joen Echev­er­ria: I know.

Tabitha Bak­er: Just get­ting any­where on cam­pus is just hard­er. Like, even the din­ing hall, I think, is just far­ther off. What build­ing do you live in?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Snow.

Tabitha Bak­er: Oh, uh, is it, like, behind. Is the din­ing hall far from snow or. Not real­ly, no. Okay. Yeah, I under­stand. I inter­viewed, um, Jake McFar­lane, who lives at Wil­son, and he was say­ing, he had told me that it’s just hard­er to get to the din­ing hall in gen­er­al, which is just, like, so bad because that’s where you guys get food.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yes. For Wil­son, it def­i­nite­ly like that path I was talk­ing about. That’s the path you have to take to get from Wil­son to the din­ing hall. For­tu­nate­ly, since I live in snow, I don’t have to do that.

Tabitha Bak­er: Okay, well, that’s good.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: I mean, I don’t know. Do you know when the con­struc­tion is going to end, or does nobody know yet?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Um, well, look­ing at the plan that UConn cre­at­ed for all the new con­struc­tion and ren­o­va­tions they’re doing for south end all over cam­pus, they said it’s sup­posed to be done by next fall, but I don’t believe that. Uh, for the new sci­ence one build­ing, they said it was sup­posed to be done last fall also, but it was com­plet­ed in the spring and final­ly opened then.

Joen Echev­er­ria: No.

Tabitha Bak­er: So you think it’s going to take that long this time, too?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Most like­ly because that was a sci­ence build­ing, one big build­ing, but cre­at­ing, like, suite type rooms and an, uh, entire din­ing hall, I feel like it would def­i­nite­ly take a long time.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: I was look­ing at some pic­tures from before at the begin­ning of the con­struc­tion to now, and you can hon­est­ly see a huge dif­fer­ence, but you can lit­er­al­ly see where the din­ing hall is going to be. But I guess even though there’s progress, I guess there’s just no telling when it’s going to be done, which is too bad. And when do you graduate?

Joen Echev­er­ria: Grad­u­ate? Um, I grad­u­ate 2025.

Tabitha Bak­er: Nice.

Joen Echev­er­ria: Yeah.

Tabitha Bak­er: Ah, well, hope­ful­ly it’ll be done by then, but who knows? All right, well, thank you for join­ing me today.

Joen Echev­er­ria: No problem.

Tabitha Bak­er: At the end of the day, south is a great place to live, but right now, maybe not so much. The con­struc­tion all around the res­i­dence halt is dri­ving every­body, well, nuts and mak­ing peo­ple sec­ond guess if they should have even lived there at all. Hope­ful­ly by next year, UConn will be pret­ty much done with the con­struc­tion itself. But at this rate, who even knows? It’s super loud all the time. Class­es are far­ther away than they were planned to be for peo­ple liv­ing there now. And we get cement pours at 05:00 in the morn­ing. Come on, UConn. I guess we’ll see how long this takes. But, uh, in the mean­time, thanks for lis­ten­ing. I’m Tabitha Bak­er, and have a great rest of your night.

Social Media Promos: 

Oth­er Links: 

South Cam­pus Res­i­dence Hall Design

UConn is Con­struct­ing a $215 mil­lion res­i­dence hall on South Campus

Board of Trustees Approves Con­struc­tion of New South Cam­pus Res­i­dence Hall