Renovation has moved classes and caused detours
By Sequoia Hall
The beautiful STEM building, Building 16, has been under renovation since April 2 and is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of the winter term 2026.
Students have had to take a detour to their classrooms, but the noise inside those rooms is a big disruption. Classes and tests have had to be moved, and classes have been forced to go outside because of the overwhelming noise.
This noise is coming from remodeling Building 16’s east hallway and bathrooms. This remodel was required because of outdated wiring, a need for a new HVAC system, and improving the building’s structural integrity in case of an earthquake, LCC science instructor Mary Baxter tells The Torch.
The first to go were the fish tanks. Students noticed something was happening when one day in March, the fish tanks that were popular to look at while going to class disappeared. (See story by Rye Butler-Corbett this issue.)
Faculty knew about the remodel first, and they relayed the message to the students. The construction is going on in the Building 16 basement (who knew that was there?) and in its adjacent crawl spaces.
In the blueprint; it said that the crawl space was level and was made of 1-5 feet of fill (fill is a construction term where, if the ground is uneven, they will fill in the low parts with the high parts); instead of being loose dirt that is easy to dig, it was very solid rock (metabasalt). This discovery made it so they had to bring in jackhammers and mine out the rock that they needed gone, which is causing and has caused most of the noise.
There was an expectation that there would be noise, but what they got was brain-rattling noise that made it nearly impossible to hear instructors. “I can deal with some buzzing, but it was way more than that; there were points where the students couldn’t hear what I was saying,” said LCC science instructor Mary Baxter.
Baxter, along with many other science instructors, has had to move classes to other rooms. She considers herself lucky — for her Rocks and Minerals class, there has to be a big table to examine specimens, and there is only one of those rooms not being affected by the construction. Her class uses the room in the mornings, and another science class takes it in the afternoon.
“The final straw was when fumes from a generator started wafting into the classroom,” Baxter says. Since then, she has taught in the other room.
Every part of the building that is closed off by the construction company is not LCC property for now. For liability reasons, not even staff are allowed there. The parts where the construction company is working are leased to the company, so LCC no longer owns the property till they are done.
The key thing that will be blocked by finals week is the science stockroom, which is where the supplies for all the labs are stored, as well as various other items for everyday classes. To combat this, the stockroom coordinators have taken on the massive task of boxing up all the essentials and communicating with the instructors on what they will need for the next two terms.
“They are working their fannies off, and as a staff, we are so grateful,” said Baxter. The items, once boxed, are stored in the respective teacher’s office (lots of rocks in Baxter’s); the rest will go into deep storage and farm dust.
For part-time instructors, all but two of the science faculty have had to plan, pack and help store the inventory pro bono. It isn’t the biggest time commitment, but the work is there. They need to do it to teach a successful class, which seems very much like a part of their job (raises eyebrows).
The alternative to moving classrooms is teaching outside, which can be done because all the classes are related to earth or environmental sciences. “There is only so much you can teach outside; you need to be able to lecture,” said Baxter when asked about going outside, especially in rainy Eugene, where writing on dry paper outside can quickly turn into wet paper (thanks rain).
There is also an option to move to Building 19, but the instructor would have to schlep all the stuff there and back every class. This could be a lot, especially if it’s a bunch of rocks like in Baxter’s case.
The noise is not the construction company’s fault; they installed sound buffers to help mask the noise, Baxter tells The Torch, but those were no match for the constant pounding of a jackhammer. The job is slated to be finished at the beginning of the winter term. Unfortunately, they are already behind schedule. The construction will continue. Hopefully, they will be done with the loud stuff by the fall term, but that may be wishful thinking.
Until it is finished, expect a detour going to the east wing of Building 16, and hope we never have to test the earthquake readiness of the building, even though it will be ready. For more updates, follow Torch’s social media @thetorchnews on Instagram or take a stroll to Building 16 to look for yourself.
