January 23, 2012 — Coral Gables — Thanks to a new website that includes a live Webcam of the construction site, faculty, staff, students, and alumni can now track the progress of UM’s new Student Activities Center, scheduled for completion in 2012. The website, www.miami.edu/studentcenterproject, also include a fact sheet and building specifications for the project.
The Student Activities Center will include gathering places, programming space, a student organizations suite, retail outlets, and a new Rathskeller.
Designed to support student life and involvement at UM, the new Student Activities Center will provide even more programs that involve students in citizenship, leadership, community, and spirit. Undergraduate student government, graduate student association, and law school student organization offices will be housed there. The Department of Student Activities and Student Organizations and the William R. Butler Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development also will relocate to the center when it is completed.
The center’s top floor will include a multipurpose room with seating for 800 and a panoramic view of Lake Osceola, and it will be equipped with video and sound technologies to accommodate banquets and other campus ceremonies. The Lakeview Terrace will provide additional space for major campus events, receptions, meetings, and even small performances.
The center’s construction is taking place simultaneously with a parallel project to renovate UM’s existing Whitten University Center, which over its four decades of existence has seen the number of student organizations increase from 100 to more than 265. Among the University Center’s improvements: new public spaces, a new swimming pool deck, upgraded meeting rooms, an enhanced terraced patio, and lake-side performance stage for campus events.
