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Program Committees Begin Their Work

JJC Embarks on Design of New Facilities Beginning With Campus Center Joliet Junior College has begun the planning process for the design of future facilities on campus as outlined in the college's Master Plan, beginning with a new campus center.

But before the blue prints are drawn, a layout for each building needs to be developed. To address this, the college has formed multiple programming committees. These committees will determine the most effective layout for the new buildings while taking student needs, space, and adjacency of departments and programs into consideration.

These are the first sweeping physical changes to the Main Campus since 1974. The campus center will be built where buildings A, B, and C converge.

The campus center programming committee was the first committee to convene after a tuition increase and capital assessment fee was approved in May to help fund the project.

"Our conversations began with how we can best serve our students," Betsy Oudenhoven, vice president of student development, said.

Currently, services for students are spread all throughout campus. Many services in J-Building will be relocated to the new campus center, which will house the student development division, student services, the library, and the college administration.

"By having this one-stop shop, it is literally going to be the new heart of the campus as well as the new front door. It is really exciting," Jeff Sronkoski, of Legat Architects, said. Sronkoski is also a member of the campus center programming committee.

The committee will be heading to Chicago this week to take a look at the design of other campuses including the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), DePaul University, McKendree University, and the College of Lake County (CLC).

This will be an opportune time to speak with other schools and find out what worked for them or what changes they would like to make if they could do it again, said Oudenhoven.

Including the Campus Center committee, six of the planned 14 committees are currently operating.

The six established committees include:

• Campus Center
• Library
• Business Services (Cafeteria and Bookstore)
• Green House/classroom building
• Facility Services Building and Boiler expansion
• Administration and Board Room

One duty of the programming committees will be to work on adjacency in the design of the facilities. This will promote efficiency in serving students and better collaboration between departments. Committees will also make sure that the building space allotted does not go to waste, and will work collectively to make certain that the space used is as effectively as possible for each new facility.

"The last thing you want to do is make changes to a building the first year after it is built," David Agazzi, vice president of administrative services, said. Agazzi added that groundbreaking for the first project is scheduled for October or November 2008 after a planned bond sale in late August.