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Snedecor remodeling
Statistics now at Wilson Hall...and many other places.
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A month shy of her 41st anniversary in the Department of Statistics, Norma Elwick finally has a window, albeit in a residence hall south of campus.
"I've always had an inside office," she said.
The statistics secretary and reading room supervisor along with everyone else in Snedecor Hall are working in new locations, most of them temporary. Snedecor was emptied in December for a $9 million renovation estimated to last 15 months.
Department staff and several faculty are housed in the lower floors of Wilson Hall, the western twin of the Towers Residence Halls, which are nearer to Highway 30 than campus.
Upon completion, statistics will return to the Works Progress Administration building that opened during Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term in 1939. First known as the Service Building, the structure saw an addition on the south side completed in 1961. Eight years later the building was renamed for George Snedecor, who taught Iowa State's first statistics courses and established the campus Statistical Laboratory in 1933.
The statistics staff and faculty, along with the Statistical Laboratory, now are in Wilson. However, as Ken Koehler, University Professor and chair of statistics, says, "We have people all over campus."
The Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology (CSSM) moved to the ISU Research Park and will remain there. Faculty with joint appointments in other departments are using their second offices scattered about campus, and some faculty have secured temporary space elsewhere in other ISU buildings.
Statistics faculty and staff will continue to keep their existing phone numbers.
Snedecor classes will be rescheduled elsewhere on campus, although Koehler said some Ph.D.-level courses could be held at Wilson since the participants are housed there. Teaching assistants will have office hours on campus so undergraduates won't have to trek to the Towers for meetings.
It is believed the Statistics Department's return to Snedecor in 2009 will mark the first time an entire academic department has moved back to its renovated space. A department normally moves to a new permanent location and its former space is remodeled for new uses. Or a building may remain partially open during renovation, with occupants moving to new areas as they becomes available.
Although the plan requires two moves, Snedecor will be a completely new structure. After asbestos removal, renovation is expected to begin in spring. The building will be gutted to create a larger and improved computer lab, a bigger general classroom, more graduate students offices, additional conference rooms and more functional space for visitors and students.
"We also had no space to house a visitor or a post doc," Koehler explained. "Now we will have space for three."
Men's and women's restrooms will be located on each floor, which was not the case in the past.
Koehler said the remodeled building will aid in attracting top students and faculty and help the department better serve the university community. Statistics faculty and staff assist many people on campus to design surveys and experiments and analyze results.
"There's always people coming into this building," said Koehler.
Elwick said statistics has been a "great department" to be part of all these years. "The people are very, very nice and easy to work for. That's one of the reasons I stayed here so long."
When she and her colleagues return next year, they know they will have to adjust to many changes. But Elwick won't miss the old Snedecor heating and cooling system, which meant "layers in the winter, and a sweater in the summer."
Around LAS
January 14-27, 2008
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