Campus Dorms | Photo by Christian Peters | The Wright State Guardian
In the nine months since Crawford Hoying took ownership of several Wright State University (WSU) housing properties, a number of small repairs and ongoing large projects have broken ground on campus.
Ongoing improvements
WSU Director of Residence Life and Housing Dan Bertsos acknowledged that small repairs have been ongoing in student housing in the months since Crawford Hoying took over, including small paint repairs and carpet replacement.
“There are some other smaller projects that I don't think everybody would appreciate,” Bertsos said. “They're replacing all the lighting [in] all their buildings and they're changing from what kind of lighting was installed 20 or 30 years ago, with energy-saving LED lights.”
Students on campus have proven to be appreciative of these smaller projects occurring on campus.
“I was excited to see the changes in the Woods this year. My dorm felt cleaner and more homey when I moved in than it did last year,” WSU sophomore liberal arts major Toby Symonds said.
Not all students at WSU believe that WSU has maintained all aspects of housing appropriately. WSU residential students have reported that they worry maintenance is not prioritizing requests in a timely fashion.
“I have seen maintenance doing things like random paint jobs while people in my building have been requesting help with a fridge issue or light problem for over a week. It’s frustrating,” WSU sophomore sociology major Clare Burgh said.
Bertsos acknowledged that students who feel their maintenance requests are not being responded to can email housing@wright.edu. Bertsos said the inbox is checked daily, often by himself.
Upcoming projects
Three main projects are currently in the design process with tentative plans to break ground during the spring 2022 semester. The first of these projects is a dance studio for theater and dance majors.
“A room in the Honors building that was originally designed as a recreation space but seldom used because it's located a little bit off the beaten track… turning it into a dance studio,” Bertsos said. “We know that Honors [Community] has a performing arts floor and Honors is dedicated to those students. We've worked very closely with the theater program [for the planning process]”.
The second project currently in the design process for Crawford Hoying involves the space that used to encompass Bridge Cafe within the Honors Community.
“There's a student organization that's going to use one half, okay, but the other half they are hoping to set up as a kind of a food and gathering space,” Bertsos said.
The final project currently in the drafting project is a 6000 square foot clubhouse. The clubhouse will include a pool, volleyball courts and a deck.
All three projects are still in a tentative planning process.
