James Tex, left, and Asa Jackson, employees with Tryon General Electric, install lights in a dorm room in Langford Hall on the campus of Montana State University on Aug. 1, 2011.
For years grandparents visiting Montana State University’s Langford and Hapner Hall dormitories have noted with astonishment that nothing seemed to have changed since they were students.
Dorm rooms looked the same and even smelled the same, said Tammie Brown, MSU housing director.
Finally this summer, the two dorms are getting their first major facelifts in 51 years.
Together with upgrades to the Miller and Harrison dining halls, it means nearly $3 million worth of renovations will make living and eating on campus more attractive.
Other construction projects on campus may be bigger, like the $10 million football stadium expansion, paid for with private funds, and the $16 million renovation of Cooley Labs, largely paid for with federal stimulus dollars. But those projects won’t improve the quality of life for as many students as the dorm and dining hall upgrades.
The dorm improvements are being paid for with money earned by MSU’s auxiliary services — dorms, dining halls and other business enterprises — not with tax dollars.
“This is a huge change,” said Tom Stump, MSU’s auxiliary services director. “Kids are going to love it.”
MSU is expecting another strong year for student enrollment, perhaps equaling or exceeding last year’s record of 13,559 students, said Allen Yarnell, vice president for student success.
More than 3,500 of those students will live on campus.
Last year, MSU had to scramble to turn married and graduate student apartments into housing for an overflow of freshmen and older students who’d signed up for the dorms. What was supposed to be a temporary solution became permanent.
This year the university is ready, having turned half of the Julia Martin East housing into 158 freshman apartments.
Todd Jutila, MSU’s food services director, is excited about the upgrades to Miller Dining Hall, which serves roughly 1,500 students some 3,000 meals a day.
The institutional-beige laminate tables that filled Miller Dining Hall for 30 years have been replaced with spiffy new chairs and tables decorated with Bobcat logos. Another 50 seats have been added. Students will have more choice of large and small tables, booths and high bar-stool-style seating.
“It’s amazing what furniture will do to a place,” Jutila said, adding that the most common reaction from students so far has been “Wow.”
The menu is also getting a fresh look, with the addition of 120 new recipes, like chipotle cinnamon chicken. Miller Dining Hall has a new coffee bar, featuring a cappuccino machine and a 60-inch TV screen.
A cool new photomural by SCS Wraps, showing snowboarding and other mountain sports, now decorates Miller’s walls. Harrison Dining Hall has a dramatic new 50-foot photo of the Bridger Mountains, and next year it will get updated seating.
Students have had a big say in the changes. They wanted dining halls open longer hours, so that will happen this fall. Students hated the bright yellow paint picked out for Hapner Hall, so that was toned down. Students picked out new desks, complete with a lockable drawer.
Students hated the staff’s idea of replacing dorm closets and cabinets with armoires, so instead the furnishings were renovated. That’s a more sustainable solution that will send a lot less material to the landfill.
Nick Fulton, a 2004 MSU architecture grad, designed the dorm renovation with Bechtle Architects of Bozeman.
Brian Nostrant, supervisor for BN Builders, said the renovation created jobs for 150 workers and will be finished this week, ahead of schedule.
A lot of credit should go to MSU President Waded Cruzado for strongly supporting the effort to renovate the dorms, instead of just repairing them, Stump and Yarnell said.
Next summer, more work is planned to upgrade the two dorms’ tired-looking entries, lounges and front desks.
“It’s about time,” Brown said. “For students, with what they pay, they deserve a more current presentation.”
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