Faculty and staff from the College of Education will be relocated to temporary offices for two years, as the College of Education building begins construction and asbestos reduction this summer. One of those relocations will displace all of the residents of Targhee Residence hall — much to the dismay of many of its current residents.
The relocation announcement has shocked many current Targhee residents, and has received wide spread disapproval in the hall, said first-year student Kathryn Goatcher, who had renewed her contract with UI Housing before the announcement.
“It’s devastating, this is our home … it’s really hard to deal with,” Goatcher said. “I would say out of all the communities here we are probably the most connected.”
Goatcher said the replacement community in Wallace will not be the same, and will remove many aspects of what makes Targhee Hall memorable for students.
The College of Education will be housed in eight buildings around campus, including the Administration Building, Idaho Commons and Targhee Hall.
Corinne Mantle-Bromley, dean of the College of Education, said the relocation will displace about 70 total faculty and staff members. She said finding extra office space on campus was a difficult task, and required a few creative solutions.
“On a campus where space is tight, this is not insignificant. It’s been, I would say, a really major job to try and figure this out,” Mantle-Bromley said.
She said faculty will have to be more organized and communicate regularly, because of the relocation and distance between many of the offices.
“We will have to be a communication machine,” Mantle-Bromley said. “We are a large college, and we have a lot of programs and students.”
Brain Johnson, assistant vice president of facilities, said Targhee Hall will house the most offices since it is a large space and can accommodate many offices.
Mantle-Bromley said she tried to keep internal departments within the same building to minimize the effects of the relocation and ensure a smooth transition. She said the relocation process had to be accelerated to begin construction this summer, which has added pressure to UI administrators.
“This is really fast, usually this kind of work happens over a longer period of time, and that’s part of the stress, in terms of figuring out where to go,” Mantle-Bromley said.
Kelsi Nagle, recruitment coordinator for University Housing, said Targhee Hall will be the only residence hall affected by the relocation, and will be transferred to the fourth floor of the Stevenson Wing in the Wallace Residence Center. She said the relocation is likely to affect incoming students, since around 90 percent of Targhee residents are first-year students.
Nagle said the College of Education thought Targhee Hall would be a logical building to relocate to, because of its proximity to other academic buildings.
Nagle said UI Housing is excited to have the fine arts community closer to the center of residential life on campus, because it will allow students to experience living in a specialized community, while also being connected to a larger student community.
“We are putting them in a building where they are closer to their meal plan, they’re closer to our academic success center, and now they are also going to able to keep that fine arts component,” Nagle said.
Mantle-Bromley said she is grateful to all of the departments involved for sharing their space and allowing the project to begin on time.
Ryan Tarinelli can be reached at [email protected]