Building renovations, security improvements, even higher faculty salaries: These are some of the changes likely to result from Uni's postponement of its search for a new director/principal. Alex Zhai spoke to Associate Provost Keith Marshall at the April 23 PFO Spring General Meeting about these topics and came back with this update.

URBANA — By next fall, Uni’s hallways could look much different.

At the Parent-Faculty Organization’s 2008 Spring General Meeting held in Siebel Center on April 23, Director/Principal Steve Epperson and Associate Provost Keith Marshall explained the latest developments in the plans for refurbishing Uni that were being discussed by the administration earlier this year.

The developments announced at the meeting solidified some of the multitudinous changes suggested in association with the one-year deferment of the principal search. The Uni building is also due for repairs based on the University of Illinois Facilities and Services rotation.

According to Marshall, $300,000 has already been set aside for renovations, and Provost Linda Katehi has committed to an “aggressive salary plan” to increase the salaries of Uni faculty. Marshall declined to elaborate on the salary plan at this time.

In order to help fundraising, a proposal is being drafted for the Chancellor’s Capital Review Committee. Facilities and Services will likely perform a facility study next year to determine the most pressing facility needs and draw up as yet inchoate plans for future expansions of the current buildings.

In the meeting, Marshall also addressed the topic of security, which has become a subject of serious concern in recent years.

After last year’s code red drill, the University of Illinois campus police noted several security problems in the building, including the ability for outsiders to enter freely, doors to classrooms that lock only from the outside, and the lack of a public announcement system.

Coupled with parents’ concerns, these issues inspired plans to strengthen building security along with the other improvements. Among other things next fall, it is likely that proximity card readers will be installed on the main doors; students would need to hold their ID cards near the reader to gain entrance. (See the Gargoyle's coverage of this issue here.)

So far, the noticeable results of the newly acquired funding mainly seem to be blue doors in the first-floor hallway and repainted ceilings, but these could be the herald of bigger changes.

“The painting seems like a cosmetic fix,” Marshall says of the work underway, “but when you do the painting you have to fix all the plaster cracks and all the leaks.”

In a similar way, the prospect of searching for a new director/principal has brought renewed interest in renovations that many consider long overdue.

“We don’t want the building to be the detractor and someone to get focused on that and not on the faculty and the students,” says Marshall. “Spending a year identifying issues and trying to find solutions brought a lot of attention to Uni in the Provost’s Office.”

The next major meeting on these issues will probably occur this summer. According to Epperson, there will be a Uni retreat involving parents, faculty, alumni, and students, in which representatives of the groups will make recommendations regarding the characteristics sought for in a principal and the future direction of Uni.

Says Epperson, “The summer retreat is something I’m really hoping will be a success.”