Out with the old and in with the new: worn-out upholstery, old technology and dim lighting will no longer be top of mind to students in Agronomy Hall. As a part of the university’s 10 year classroom upgrade cycle, one of Agronomy Hall’s auditoriums, Agronomy 2050, will receive a major makeover this summer.
Kathleen Baumgarn, a classroom scheduling specialist with Facilities Planning and Management, said Agronomy 2050, which can hold up to 117 students, will remain at the same capacity after the completion of construction.
“Yeah, it’s one of those things where it just started kind of falling apart,” Baumgarn said. “You know, things that were like, ‘OK, yep, the lighting needs to improve.’ That’s not the best for the students to just take notes, much less take exams there. So it’s gonna be really exciting. I mean, we’re taking off the ceiling and going up to the deck and it’d be nice.”
According to Baumgarten, the estimated cost of the project is $612,550, with construction starting May 13, immediately after finals week. Baumgarn said the auditorium should be ready for fall classes on Aug. 23.
Baumgarn said planning started in the spring of 2022 and financing for the project was secured in March 2023.
New classrooms within 10 years
In 2014, the university placed each classroom on a 10 year upgrade cycle, where classrooms would be upgraded with new technology, paint, seats and more based on the specific needs of each classroom.
“It was very ambitious,” Baumgarn said. “But also funding was very different than at that time. There was a higher promise […] from upper administration that they were going to be able to give us more money.”
Baumgarn also attributes many of the shortcomings to the cost of goods today compared to 10 years ago.
As of the spring 2024 semester, a third of the university’s 209 general university classrooms have been upgraded since 2014 at a total cost of roughly $5.7 million. The average cost per classroom is about $450,000, according to Brandi Latterell, assistant vice president of real estate and planning at Facilities Planning and Management. During that same time frame, 21 additional classrooms have been introduced, most coming from the Student Innovation Center, which opened its doors to students in fall 2020.
The original plan carved out $750,000 per year for upgrades, $500,000 from the office of the senior vice president and provost and $250,000 from facilities planning and management, according to Inside Iowa State.
Baumgarn said the upgrades that take place today are drastically different than nearly 10 years ago, citing the ever-changing technology landscape.
“I think that we’ve seen especially since COVID, more cameras being added into spaces so that faculty can be seen,” Baumgarn said.
Classrooms that are upgraded are selected based on needs, room utilization and room capacity, with rooms that house classes with 70 to 150 seats at the top of the list. Baumgarn noted that classrooms on the perimeter of campus tend to have lower utilization compared to centralized classrooms.
The university will also be “right-sizing” 30 classrooms this summer, which sometimes involves taking unused seats out of a room to make it feel more appropriately sized, Latterell said.
“We’re just starting what we’ve called the small classroom project. It’s a right sizing of rooms, to where we’re actually going to try to have all of our classrooms eventually have, at least the ones with movable furniture[…], at 25 square-feet per student,” Baumgarn said.
