The university struggles to provide adequate classroom capacity for current enrollment. Additionally, current capacity limitations on existing lecture halls does not allow efficient use for large lecture hall type courses, nor provide a preferred venue for auditorium presentations.
Straub Hall contains classrooms that are subject to renovation as part of the Straub Hall Deferred Maintenance project, currently in design. In the planning of the deferred maintenance project the opportunity for classroom expansion was recognized and classroom expansion options were proposed.
A proposal to renovate and expand areas of Straub and Earl halls to build new state-of-the-art academic classroom space, including a large lecture hall, was submitted by the Academic Infrastructure Committee (AIC) to the UO Space Advisory Group (SAG) for inclusion as part of the university’s submittal to the OUS for state funded capital projects. The project was considered along with other proposed UO projects, including other classroom projects, and placed by the SAG as the first priority project on the university’s 2013-2015 biennium Capital Construction list and submitted to OUS for consideration. In the SAG evaluation of the submitted projects and the various ways to increase classroom capacity on campus, the Classroom Expansion at Straub-Earl Halls emerged as first choice largely because it appears it will assist in alleviating classroom capacity problems in the most expedient manner available, within the instructional portion of campus.
The Finance and Administration sub-committee of the OUS Board ranks all proposals for all of the OUS campuses. The sub-committee recognizes the university’s classroom need and has placed the Classroom Expansion at Straub-Earl Halls project as the number two project out of twenty-four projects on the OUS Capitcal Construction project list put forward for state funding. Projects contained on this list will be considered for approval by the Legislature in June 2013.
Classroom Expansion 