Phase two of the Belknap Academic Building Pedestrian Plaza started in March, and it includes the closing of Brook Street at University Boulevard on the southwest side of campus.

From spring through the summer, construction crews will work on replacing the roadway with light-reflecting paving to decrease the summer heat effect, designated bicycle and walking pathways, new greenspace and landscaping, and sustainability features aimed at mitigating storm water from campus.

“Brook Street is a roadway that has been a city road for a long time,” said UofL senior architect John Stratton. “This allows us to turn this area into a public space that’s safer for students.

“This project will connect the Student Activities Center to the new academic building to Houchens and other student services, so we’re constantly looking to grow the university and build a campus that is pedestrian friendly.”

Previously, a portion of the Houchens Building that served as the old postal office was torn down. The main entrance of Houchens, located on the west side of the building, will be closed; the existing north entrance will serve as the temporary main entrance.

Vehicle traffic will be re-routed to the new Service Drive, located alongside the railroad tracks.

The Belknap Academic Building, which opened in August 2018, is the newest classroom space on campus. The four-story, $80-million facility is located between Shumaker Research Building and Lutz Hall. At 165,000-square feet, it houses more than 50 classrooms, laboratories, seminar rooms and group study areas.

“We have the opportunity to turn this into a more pedestrian-friendly space,” Stratton said. “We are improving the safety in this area. The campus has grown. The classroom building has brought many new students to campus in this area.”

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The annual conference showcases undergraduate research and scholarship at the 15 ACC member schools and represents the power and synergy that can exist between athletics and academics. The event has become an opportunity for universities in the ACC to highlight the diversity of research being conducted by undergraduates and for students to share their work with peers across the ACC.

About 100 students and faculty advisors are expected to attend the event. The students will present their research throughout the day Saturday and again Sunday morning at the Belknap Academic Building.

Activities kick off Friday night with a banquet and reception at the Muhammad Ali Center. Saturday’s program includes a luncheon presentation on “The Environment, Health and Well Being” by Aruni Bhatnager, director of UofL’s Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. Provost Beth Boehm and Charlie Leonard, executive director of the UofL Grawemeyer Awards, also will speak. Attendees will choose between a campus tour and a tour of the J.B. Speed Art Museum.

UofL students Maria Shields, Caleb Bridgwater, Noela Botaka, Alisha Deshmukh, Kennedy Walls and Lloyd Bartley will be among the presenters.

The Meeting of the Minds “is another example of the tremendous benefit UofL gets from being among the outstanding institutions of the ACC,” Leonard said. “This conference presents a great opportunity for the university to show off our students, our campus and the community. It also enables us to share and learn from our faculty and student colleagues throughout the ACC.”

The Meeting of the Minds is the first of two major ACC academic conferences within the next 10 days. Faculty from ACC schools will present leading-edge research projects at the ACCelerate Festival next weekend at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

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Those were some of the words used August 14 during a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the Belknap Academic Building. The 165,000-square-foot building addresses a longtime need for more and better classroom space.

“UofL had the most critical shortage of classroom space of all Kentucky public schools. This building changes all of that,” said UofL President .

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who took part in the celebration, called the facility an “incredible resource” that will change people’s lives.

“This is the embodiment of what spending money on post-secondary education is all about,” Bevin said. “This building is how we connect young people with the skills they have to impart and to empower them and arm them with what they need in the real world.”

The four-story, $80 million facility, located along South Brook Street between the Shumaker Research Building and Lutz Hall, contains more than 50 classrooms, laboratories, seminar rooms and group study areas. It also includes common areas where students can interact with their classmates.

Additionally, the building houses the university’s , where students receive services that will help them to thrive in the classroom and beyond.

“These services are essential to student success and they belong in the same building,” said Interim Provost Beth Boehm. “We are trying to provide constant, intensive support for our students. Our goal is for them not just to succeed, but to excel.”

The ceremony, which was held less than 48 hours before freshman move-in day, represents a new beginning, said Student Government Association President .

“I think I speak for the entire Cardinal family when I say this building couldn’t come at a better time, when we’re starting fresh and refocusing on our mission,” Fuller said.

Construction of the academic building began two years ago on the site where the legendary Crawford Gym once stood. In a nod to the past, the first-floor benches in the new building are made of wood recycled from the Crawford Gym floor.

The new building primarily will serve undergraduate students, particularly those taking courses in the College of Arts and Sciences. It has labs dedicated to anthropology, biology, chemistry and physics.

The building’s technology-rich spaces are designed to foster innovative and active learning methods proven to promote student engagement. Services offered in the facility make it a one-stop academic shop for UofL students.

“Our hope is this building sends a powerful signal to the world that UofL will continue to thrive and excel as an academic institution,” Bendapudi said.

Photos from today’s ceremony and building tours are . Below are some highlights from the ribbon-cutting ceremony: 

• Sidewalk between Threlkeld Hall and Student Activities Center
• Sidewalk between Shumaker Research Building and new Belknap  Academic Building
• Sidewalk between Lutz Hall and new Belknap Academic Building
• Sidewalk rework at South side of Lutz Hall. Work complete, area open
• Temporary delivery truck access point
• Circular turnaround south of Humanities Building closed to pedestrians and vehicles

Throughout the summer months, additional sidewalk areas will be fully and/or partially closed for similar rework in the areas around the Belknap Academic Building. Additional notifications will follow.

• Sidewalk between Threlkeld Hall and Student Activities Center
• Sidewalk between Shumaker Research Building and new Belknap Academic Building
• Sidewalk between Lutz Hall and new Belknap Academic Building
• Sidewalk rework at South side of Lutz Hall.

Throughout the summer months, additional sidewalk areas will be fully and/or partially closed for similar rework in the areas around the Belknap Academic Building. Additional notifications will follow.

Construction has also commenced today to reconfigure the Shumaker Research Building loading dock. Throughout this work the loading dock will remain operational. Due to this work the sidewalk crossing at the corner of Threlkeld Hall, Student Activities Center, Houchens and Shumaker Research Building will be impacted. A new curb cut, paving and painted crosswalks with directional signage will be installed.

Your continued understanding and patience with these construction activities is appreciated as we make these improvements throughout the summer months.

Linked is a map of the affected areas.��

When the Belknap Academic Classroom Building opens in August, employees from the strategic enrollment management and student success office will be running the welcome desk.

That set up is purposeful, as the building itself is dedicated entirely student success. Granted, the definition of “student success” can be arbitrary, but for Jim Begany, vice provost for strategic enrollment management and student success, and Joe Dablow, executive director of student success, it comes down to:

• Graduation rates
• Retention rates

En route to that college degree, the enrollment management and student success team helps students adapt to college life and enhances their academic skills for a better college experience.

“We can define (student success) in other ways, such as the experience students have while they’re here, if they get the services they need, if they get jobs after graduation or go onto grad school,” Begany said. “But the graduation rate and the retention rate is ultimately the end result of most of the work we do.”

To support these objectives, the building will feature classrooms and labs that facilitate active learning, as well as a student success center that offers academic support and advising all in one spot. This proximity should better enable the work Begany, Dablow and team are doing to reach UofL’s goals.

“Now, we have staff all around campus and I am looking forward to being in one place. The building can be a starting point for us to make sure we’re efficient in making enhancements and providing the services our students need,” Dablow said.

Although we’re months away from the official ribbon-cutting ceremony, it is important to note that UofL is already on track to hit its 6-year graduation goal of 60 percent by 2020. This is up from the 48 percent graduation rate from 15 years ago.

“We’ve been doing this great work already and have made significant progress already. What we’re excited about when this building opens is to better create a synergy amongst these different areas,” Begany said. “It won’t make this job any easier, but having these folks in the same space will provide a better opportunity to engage our students.”

Exploratory students

Dablow oversees the Student Success Center, which includes first-year programming efforts to promote retention; advising and support to about 1,500 “exploratory students;” and student success coordinators, who are available to help students overcome obstacles and complete the path to graduation.

The exploratory students fall into two main groups: pre-unit students, which include those who know what path they want to be on but haven’t gotten there yet, e.g. a student who wants to be an engineer but hasn’t yet been accepted to Speed; and students who are undecided majors.

“We have students come in and they say they want to do something, but they don’t really know how and we’re helping them get to where they need to be,” Dablow said.

REACH

Resources for academic achievement – more commonly known as REACH – will also be located in the new building. The primary goals of REACH, overseen by Geoffrey Bailey, are to enhance or improve students’ academic performance, help students transition to college life and support retention rates.

Bailey noted that the transition to the BACB will provide more immediate access to the entire team as UofL works to expand its services for the largest (predicted) incoming class in school history.

The unification of services, coupled with other student success-driven services and programs, will enhance the ability to provide immediate assistance to students and foster a high-touch, high-tech approach to academic support, Bailey adds.

“Students will be able to travel from many of their classes directly to our centers and staff, which helps reduce physical and other perceived barriers for access,” he said. “Further, given our close proximity to our partners, we’ll also see enhanced collaborations and referrals that will directly benefit students.”

Bailey anticipates this ability to facilitate high-impact practices and provide personalized attention to set the bar for learning centers nationwide.

“Although student success has always been an essential part of REACH’s mission, the new space and proximity of our partners will foster additional opportunities for us to collaborate and have an integrated approach to supporting student learning,” he said.

Additionally, the new space will provide opportunities to expand the use of innovative academic support models such as peer-assisted learning (PAL). PAL provides academic support in historically difficult, introductory college courses.

“Given the nature and design of the active learning classroom spaces and support services in BACB, it offers the possibility of an additional tool in our arsenal of academic support mechanisms for UofL students. This is absolutely essential for all students, but it is especially true for serving student populations who have been historically disenfranchised or marginalized and for first-generation students,” Bailey said.

“When a student is engaged, they’re more likely to stay. We want to create that for them prior to getting here, when they get here and while they’re here. That will give us a better opportunity of keeping them here,” Begany added.

Recruitment tool

In addition to streamlining student success and engagement efforts, the team is excited about the recruitment possibilities the new building brings. The nearly 170,000-square-foot structure boasts a number of state-of-the-art features from active learning classrooms to technology-rich lab spaces.

“You can’t not get excited when you look at the building and I’m excited about what that means for us in terms of recruitment,” Begany said. “There is a real energy there.”

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” Dablow added. “We can take a prospective student on a walk-through tour and we don’t even have to say anything.”

The “topping off” event was celebrated by the campus community and dozens of people signed the beam before it was hoisted into place.

The four-story,150,000-square-foot is on track to open fall 2018 and will enhance learning and provide academic and career services to students. It will primarily serve undergraduate students on the Belknap Campus and will feature more than two dozen classrooms, as well as science labs and group study areas, gathering spaces and food service options.

“This building is vital for many reasons,” said Greg Postel, interim president. “It will provide the learning environment and the related services that will help drive our students’ success, both while they are undergraduates and after they have moved on to careers, families and positions of leadership in the community.”

A major part of the new structure will be a program that helps students align their abilities, academic degree and possibilities for future employment as part of their college success. The Career Development Center, open to all university students and housed in a building nearby, will be a partner in the programming for the new building.��

Jim Begany, Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management and Student Success, lauded the planned focus for the building said it will help students “navigate any roadblock on their path to graduation.”

Student Government Association President Vishnu Tirumala said the building is “nothing short of transformative” for students, who want to see more innovative classrooms and labs.��

The Kentucky Legislature approved funding for the building in 2014 to address a significant lack of classroom space at UofL. According to a Kentucky Council on Postsecondary ����ֱ�� study, UofL had the most significant shortage of classroom space among all Kentucky’s public universities.

The new facility is being built on the site that previously housed the Crawford Gym. Built in the 1960s, Crawford once served as the practice facility for the UofL basketball and swimming programs and, later, as home to the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development’s Department of Health and Sport Sciences.��

Postel thanked employees who have had an especially large role in the ongoing construction of the building including Physical Plant and Planning, Design and Construction.

Video from the ceremony is below: 

Expected to open for the fall 2018 semester, the four-story, $80 million academic building primarily will serve undergraduate students on the Belknap Campus. It will house 17 classrooms, as well as science labs and group study areas, gathering spaces and food service options.

It also will feature a student success center, which will integrate academic support, advising and career services and a new Teaching Academy into one facility designed to improve the academic experience for undergraduate students and better prepare them for life after college.

“This building will directly impact student success,” said Acting President Neville Pinto. “First, it will address the severe lack of classroom space for our undergraduate students. Second, it will allow us to combine several key student services in one location, making it easier for our students to get the support they need. And it will allow us, through our Teaching Academy, to share resources and ideas that will enable our faculty to more efficiently and effectively teach our students.”

The Kentucky Legislature approved funding for the building in 2014 to address a significant lack of classroom space at UofL. According to a Kentucky Council on Postsecondary ����ֱ�� study, UofL had the most significant shortage of classroom space among all Kentucky’s public universities.

“Lack of quality classroom space has been a consistent concern among our students,” said Aaron Vance, Student Government Association president. “More high-tech classrooms, more convenient services and comfortable gathering spaces will have a big impact on learning at UofL.” 

The new facility will be built on the site that previously housed Crawford Gym. Built in the 1960s, Crawford once served as the practice facility for the UofL basketball and swimming programs and then as home to the Department of Health and Sports Science. Those offices have been moved to the Swain Student Activities Center.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday. .��

Check out video from the groundbreaking event below: