DetroitMan
10-21-2009, 10:17 PM
Eastern Michigan University has long-range plan for arts village on campus
CrainsDetroit Business
By Ryan Beene
Eastern Michigan University is in the very early stages of planning an estimated $80 million project that would renovate 87,500 square feet and build and additional 170,000 square feet on the east side of EMU's campus.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/assets/stories/artist-rendering.jpg
The project is called the Integrated Arts, Communication and Applied Technology Village, or ACTd Village, and it would create a new space shared by five academic units.
The units include: art; communications, media and theater arts; music and dance; engineering technology; and tech studies.
The goal of the project is to bolster student collaboration and foster more interdisciplinary curricular offerings.
Dennis Beagen, head of the communications, media and theater arts department at EMU, says that many of the current facilities used by departments to be included in the ACTd Village are currently housed in out-dated facilities scattered across campus.
“Ultimately, if the vision follows through, there will be a new facility that ties together the old and the new, renovates many of the old buildings, but will have a new facility in the middle that would create a village complex where people could walk through the newer portion into one of the older buildings,” he said.
The end goal for the students would be to create new opportunities for collaborative work between students or foster new interdisciplinary fields of study among the academic units, according to Beagen.
“What would be exciting for Eastern Michigan University is there are lots of students in community colleges and high schools that have interest in the arts — either they want to major in it and pursue it, or they have an affinity for the arts — but they're going to study the sciences,” Beagen said.
“This, we believe, by bringing it all together, would bring a more integrated and more eclectic kind of process and give students multiple opportunities to explore the arts and creativity.”
But any real movement on the project could be years away, as the ACTd Village is still in its infancy.
The project has yet to begin formal phases to raise the estimated $80 million in funding. EMU included a description of the project in its capital outlay fiscal year 2010-2011, even though it did not ask the state for money to help fund the project.
“That is a standard planning process,” said Mike Boulis, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.
“Every year, (universities) will submit their annual capital outlay building projects (to the state).”
Report item as: (required) X
Comment: (optional)
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20091021/GEO01/310219991
CrainsDetroit Business
By Ryan Beene
Eastern Michigan University is in the very early stages of planning an estimated $80 million project that would renovate 87,500 square feet and build and additional 170,000 square feet on the east side of EMU's campus.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/assets/stories/artist-rendering.jpg
The project is called the Integrated Arts, Communication and Applied Technology Village, or ACTd Village, and it would create a new space shared by five academic units.
The units include: art; communications, media and theater arts; music and dance; engineering technology; and tech studies.
The goal of the project is to bolster student collaboration and foster more interdisciplinary curricular offerings.
Dennis Beagen, head of the communications, media and theater arts department at EMU, says that many of the current facilities used by departments to be included in the ACTd Village are currently housed in out-dated facilities scattered across campus.
“Ultimately, if the vision follows through, there will be a new facility that ties together the old and the new, renovates many of the old buildings, but will have a new facility in the middle that would create a village complex where people could walk through the newer portion into one of the older buildings,” he said.
The end goal for the students would be to create new opportunities for collaborative work between students or foster new interdisciplinary fields of study among the academic units, according to Beagen.
“What would be exciting for Eastern Michigan University is there are lots of students in community colleges and high schools that have interest in the arts — either they want to major in it and pursue it, or they have an affinity for the arts — but they're going to study the sciences,” Beagen said.
“This, we believe, by bringing it all together, would bring a more integrated and more eclectic kind of process and give students multiple opportunities to explore the arts and creativity.”
But any real movement on the project could be years away, as the ACTd Village is still in its infancy.
The project has yet to begin formal phases to raise the estimated $80 million in funding. EMU included a description of the project in its capital outlay fiscal year 2010-2011, even though it did not ask the state for money to help fund the project.
“That is a standard planning process,” said Mike Boulis, executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.
“Every year, (universities) will submit their annual capital outlay building projects (to the state).”
Report item as: (required) X
Comment: (optional)
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20091021/GEO01/310219991
