The School of Engineering has been growing rapidly, over the past few years, enrollment has increased by 60 percent and is trending to increase by 20 percent for the upcoming academic year. Acquiring more space has become a desperate need, and repurposing Kriner Hall would meet this need.
There are five classrooms for engineering disciplines, and four of those double as labs. Finding time to work on projects is difficult as the classrooms are utilized consistently throughout the day for classes. This affects the ability of students to complete required work within deadlines.
Personally, my schedule and the class schedule prevent me from working on projects before 6 p.m. most days. This has had a huge affect on my ability to work efficiently and effectively with my team.
With 120-150 workstations, it would allow the current spaces in MCT to be used exclusively as classrooms. This would not require work on projects to revolve around the class schedule.
The proposed layout in Kriner would provide spaces to facilitate many types of collaborative projects, including application programming, 3D modeling, hardware design and fabrication, and general planning of projects. Furthermore, using the space to house faculty offices is an effective use of the space.
The department faculty have always been wonderful about helping teams with projects, and having them close helps students get the guidance and mentoring required to learn complex concepts.
As stated by The Slate, the dining hall portion of Kriner is underutilized by students. While certain students may find a use for the dining hall, the university has to do what is best for most students.
All spaces must be utilized consistently to justify their current state. If Kriner can’t do that, then it only makes sense to look at better ways to use the space.
I hope that the administration goes through with plans to repurpose Kriner. It would make a huge difference for the marketability of the School of Engineering and create more learning opportunities for the students.
The space is underutilized now and could become something incredibly useful if used for a different purpose.
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