The Department of Residence is working to set up a friendly, welcoming hall desk for students by renovating the desk located in the Maple-Willow-Larch Commons.

The hall desk is located on the main floor of the commons across from East Side Market.

Currently the hall desk is not large enough for daily operations in regard to serving students, said Pete Englin, director of the DOR.

“The existing Maple-Willow-Larch desk was small in regard to dealing with mail and packages,” Englin said.

The old hall desk was composed of two windows and had an uninviting atmosphere to students and guests.

“Students had a hard time figuring out where [they were] supposed to go to get help,” Englin said.

The renovations will remove a wall inside the commons to open up the area to create a larger area students can socialize in.

“It’s going to be more functional and accessible,” said Brittney Rutherford, program coordinator of the DOR. “The hall desk will be more accessible to both students and hall directors.”

With the hall desk being remodeled, the temporary desk has created a different experience for students.

The temporary desk is currently located on the top floor of the commons inside one of the classrooms. The mailboxes have also been moved from the main floor to top floor.

“Since the mailboxes are upstairs, I just don’t check my mail as often,” said Casey Sievert, sophomore in psychology.

With most renovations occurring in the summer, students typically do not get to see the areas that are being updated and expanded.

“It’s a cool project, students can see it and be part of it,” Rutherford said. “We had a lot of students ask if we could cut a hole in the wall too, so they can see what’s going on.”

With the temporary move and ongoing construction, the project has also created some distractions for students.

“One of the big effects is the noise for students studying on [the top] level,” said Kendall Evans, sophomore in public relations and Larch community adviser.

Students don’t have as much space to relax and study due to the moving of the mailboxes and where the temporary desk is, Evans said.

“The biggest impact is we moved hall director offices into the spaces students used for studying,” said Julie Hartl, program assistant of the DOR.

In order to account for students during Dead Week and Finals Week, construction will be kept quiet to reduce the noise, Hartl said.

The DOR looks forward to opening the new desk, which will once again have all the hall directors together in the same area, Evans said.

“It will be nice to have each hall director in one central location for when we need to contact them,” Evans said.

With a more open space, the DOR hopes to give a more welcoming environment where students will have an updated area and are able to approach their CA’s and hall directors.

“I look forward to [the new desk],” Sievert said. “It will look more open, and [I] look forward to the new mailboxes.”

Hartl said the space was shut off before and didn’t have very much foot traffic.

“[Hall directors] are excited to make this more of a social space where they can have more non-planned interaction with the students who live here,” Hartl said.

The new desk will look friendlier and more helpful to students, which will let them come in without being intimidated, Evans said.

Construction began on Oct. 4 and will be completed at the beginning of the spring semester.