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Colvin Hall: A Renovation Chronology
Fall 1998: A building committee was constituted to start work on the Colvin Hall renovations. A conceptual plan was finalized in November at which time architects were interviewed. Following the interviews, the committee unanimously recommended the hiring of Scott Simons Architects of Portland, Maine to continue the design process and supervise the project.
Winter 1998: Even with the unpredictabilities of a Maine winter, meetings between the architects and the building committee and among the Honors community continued. Honors students and faculty met with the architects following the Honors 101 final exam in December -- between slices of pizza and gulps of soda a great deal was accomplished. There are pictures here!
At the same time, students and faculty of the Honors Program are worked on a plan to determine how decisions on occupying Colvin Hall will made. Several ideas were tossed around, meetings held, and a fairly active conversation took place on the University's First Class conferencing system.
Spring/Summer 1999: The building committee and the architects wrapped up the preliminary design phase (see the floor plans!) and started on the Final Design. Everyone was continuing to work hard for a Fall '99 occupancy! And in September 1999 Honors students occupied the second and third floor of Colvin Hall -- a first for our campus. At the same time, planning and fundraising for the renovations continued.
October 1999: The three student members of the Building Committee (Heather Olds, Adrienne Pusateri, and Emily Ann Cain) presented From Plato to Pajamas: An Honors Integrated Living-Learning Environment at the national meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council in Orlando. The presentation was quite well received.
Spring 2000: Work began in earnest in Colvin. The floor of the sun room was raised and the demolition of the west side of the first floor was begun. In preparation for the move to Colvin Hall, approximately 20 Honors students devoted their Maine Day morning to moving the contents of the Cecil Reynolds Library from the Honors Center to temporary storage in the Colvin Hall attic.
Summer 2000: Shortly after graduation in May 2000, the remainder of the contents of the Honors Center was moved over to Colvin Hall and the original Robert B. Thomson Honors Center was torn down with the name officially transferring to the first floor of Colvin. The summer was a festival of work: carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers, and everyone else conceivable wandered through the building -- some of them staying for months at a time!
Fall 2000: The Honors Program officially moved to the first floor of Colvin Hall in September 2000. At the same time, students, now in their second year of living in Colvin, were able to take classes, along with their peers who lived all across campus, downstairs in the seminar room and the studio/ classroom. The former was finished quite a bit more than the latter! Students and the director presented From Plato to Pajamas II at the NCHC meetings in Washington, D.C. describing the continuing development of relationships between the academic and residential sides of the Program and of Colvin Hall.
Spring 2001: Work in Colvin continued throughout the 2000-2001 academic year, but most lights were still bare bulbs hanging from pigtails, the commons and hallway had no flooring, and the studio/classroom and cafe/conference room were both pretty much untouched.
Summer 2001: Saw most of the final touches put on the Thomson Honors Center -- real lights, a beautiful ceramic tile floor, a completely finished studio/classroom with plaster ceiling, a cafe/conference room looking at least presentable, and some very attractive landscaping out front.
Fall 2001: The end of October saw the finishing touches put on the cafe/conference room, one of the nicest spaces in the building and it also saw the presentation in Chicago at NCHC of Under One Roof, a look at one year of joint occupancy of Colvin Hall as a living-learning community.
April 2002: We looked around and realized that the first floor was finally finished!!! It was an incredibly exciting moment, even if it did take a while for it to sink in. The hope is for progress to start on the second, third, and fourth floors in the very near future....stay tuned!
January 2003: Some of the furnishings are falling into place. The seminar room now has a beautiful cherry-stained maple table built especially for us -- installed in July 2002. We just had very attractive full-wall bookcase made and installed in the reading (thesis) room; again made of cherry and cherry-stained birch plywood, the bookcase will hold all of our bound theses dating back to 1937!
May 2003: We're expecting a complete renovation of the lower-level this summer. It will include an all-purpose/recreation room, television lounge, kitchen, and an upgrading of the laundry room. Everything should be finished before the start of classes in September!