Erika Norton | Echo
Junior Emily Hart was just one of many Taylor students who noticed the newly rejuvenated campus during the first day of classes. Landscaping additions and a new dorm were just a few on the long list of changes.
"I think it's great that Taylor is trying to present itself in the best way it can," Hart said. "I'm looking forward to seeing it all complete and finished."
According to Superintendent of Grounds Kerry Shanebrook, the area between the Reade Center, the Euler Science Complex and Zondervan Library is now called the "Campus Central Zone" (CCZ), where 141 trees, 828 shrubs, 570 grasses and 2,098 perennials were planted this summer.
Ron Sutherland, vice president for business administration, said that since the CCZ is where a lot of academic interaction tends to take place, administration wanted to create opportunities for faculty, staff and students to have areas to gather."As we looked specifically at the place between Zondervan and Euler, we started realizing if you were to look at the campus from above and look down, that's kind of the academic area," Sutherland said. "We kind of look at that as the 'academic quad.'"
The area in front of Zondervan was designed to encourage faculty to bring classes outside and enjoy the outdoor campus as well as the indoors.
"That's part of the idea of those metal panels that are up," Sutherland said. "They form a backdrop so that when a faculty member wants to take a class outside, there's a nice lawn area and a backdrop that gives a little bit of focus without being totally distracted by what's going on."
Lights under the trees and several rock benches in the CCZ create another space where students can gather and enjoy the outdoors at night. There are 670 feet of crushed stone pathways in the CCZ, according to Shanebrook.
Almost all of the trees on the south side of Reade and on the north side of Euler were planted this summer, according to Sutherland. The goal was that, upon entering campus, the trees and lights under the trees would lead one's eyes to a central focal point. The bell tower.
"The bell tower is the symbol of campus," Sutherland said. "Now, as the lights lift your eyes up into the trees, your whole point of view comes into focus on the bell tower."
The newest building on campus is Breuninger Hall, which houses 150 male and female students and is located next to Gerig Hall. According to Shanebrook, a waterfall between two ponds will drop nine feet and have 200-600 gallons of water flowing per minute, depending on how much the geothermal system is running.
The geothermal stream already exists, but will now run from the front of Euler, down to the waterfall, which will flow into Taylor Lake. There will be no fountain outside Euler, Shanebrook confirmed, but there is a water feature that will be the start of the geothermal stream.
In addition, almost a mile of new sidewalks were installed this summer, according to Shanebrook, with 2,245 linear feet at Breuninger Hall alone. The mulch path from Samuel Morris Hall to the bell tower was also replaced with limestone.
Other renovations include 26 dead trees across campus were removed, of which 22 have been or will be replaced soon, according to Shanebrook. Fifty-three new trees, 240 shrubs and 500 perennials were planted at Breuninger as well.
A change some students may have come across indoors is that a couple of academic departments have switched buildings. The education department now resides in the basement of Euler."That move happening has facilitated other moves," said Vice Provost Jeff Groeling. "The business department is now where the education department was in the first floor of Reade."
Next summer, the Education Technology Center (ETC) may move out of Reade and into Zondervan Library so that a renovation of Reade can begin.
"That's the long term plan but none of that has been approved yet," Groeling said.
