About 300 students excitedly examined their new homes as the two newly-built residence halls, designed with input from students and named for alumnae and friends, were opened for use.
Students have not even been on campus for a month, and already these spanking new spaces are getting attention, even from the press. The Pioneer Press featured them in its September splash on the dorms of the future.
Complete with light enfused spaces, high-tech necessities, and contemporary acoutrements, these two halls honor alumnae -- Henrietta Schmoll Rauenhorst SP '49 and Susan Schmid Morrison SMC '60. It was through the generosity of their spouses (Gerald Rauenhorst and John Morrison) that they have become a reality. Several rooms within have been sponsored by alumnae or their families and by friends of the College. (For the list, click here. Floors and rooms are still available for sponsorship.)
These residence halls are designed not only to house students but to create and nurture "Learning Communities." Studies have shown that students who live on campus are more involved with leadership activities, participate in the life of the College, do better in their classes, and have higher graduation rates. Building on this idea, Learning Communities within these halls have been created around interdisciplinary liberal arts themes, such as "Justice in Action" and "Aging and Wellness." Student participants will engage with each other, faculty members, and student affairs groups to make connections between their areas of study and other disciplines around their theme, deepening their college experience.
On Sunday, October 7, 2007, Archbishop Harry J. Flynn will preside over a liturgy and then these new living areas will be dedicated.
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The finishing landscape touches are being
added to the new residence halls. |
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| "Every time I return to St. Kate's after break, this sense of security, happiness, and acceptance floods over me. I am truly at home." |
| St. Catherine student in The Princeton Review |
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Residence Hall Rooms Named for or Sponsored by Alumnae and Friends of the College
Curran Family Kitchen
Sponsored by Colleen '75, French; Margaret '78, Spanish; and Kathleen '80, Economics
Eichler Family Kitchen
Sponsored by Don and Mary Joan Deutz Eichler '52, in honor of Theresa Eichler
Elva Walker Spillane Suite
Sponsored by Jack Spillane
Florence Lenihan McHugh Social Lounge
(Class of 1951, Music and French) Sponsored by Jack McHugh
Jane Yungers Micallef Seminar Room
(Class of 1954, Nursing) Sponsored by an anonymous donor
Jane Nicolai Apartment
(Class of 1956, Elementary Education) Sponsored by Jane Nicolai
Kay Hinker Ehardt Study Lounge
(Class of 1968, French) Sponsored by John Ehardt, III
Marcella Flaten Wartman Social Lounge
Sponsored by Thomas and Marcella Flaten Wartman '49, Music
Marge Sloan Social Lounge
Sponsored by Gloria DeVore '64, Occupational Therapy
Marilyn Branchaud Beddor Social Lounge
Sponsored by Frank and Marilyn Branchaud Beddor '55, Home Economics, Communications, and Theater
Natalie Perry Smead Social Lounge
Sponsored by Peter Smead
Rita Gillach Otte Suite
Sponsored by Tom Pacholl and Rita Gillach Otte '49, Chemistry
The Mankato Kasota Stone in the halls was sponsored by the Coughlan Companies in honor of the Coughlan family, including Sister Helen Coughlan, CSJ '46, English, former professor at St. Catherine's.
Alumnae and Friends Can Still Sponsor Rooms!
There are still floors, apartments, suites, study lounges, kitchens, and computer labs available for sponsorship and naming. So if you have a beloved family member, friend, mentor, or professor you would like to honor as an individual, family, or class, please consider it. For more information, call College of St. Catherine Development Office at 651-690-6516. | Dorm Living Perks Up
New college residences are increasingly luxurious and high-tech as schools try to keep more students on campus.
BY JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA
Pioneer Press
09/05/2007
Until this year, Raven Lopez never had a bedroom to herself. She was one of 12 siblings in her Montana home. During three years at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, she shared sleeping space in dormitories or apartment-style student housing.
But this semester, the senior is basking in unspeakable comfort. She is one of about 300 upperclasswomen in two new halls with unusual amenities - including one-woman-to-a-bedroom bunking in the suite-style campus complex.
These aren't Mom and Dad's old dorms.
New college residences in Minnesota are increasingly luxurious and high-tech as colleges and universities try to keep more of their students on campus - an uphill battle since there are many enticing off-campus options.
At St. Catherine, the new halls blend fully furnished privacy with a sense of community, including vast gathering places with big-screen TVs, cushy beanbag chairs, huge windows overlooking woods and spiral staircases so floors aren't segregated. Feminine touches include 26 shades of paint. …
The University of Kentucky is pushing "learning communities," which let first-year students with similar interests live and take classes in the same place. The College of St. Catherine also is trying this, to a lesser degree, with classes to be held in its new halls. At least one woman in each suite must be enrolled, says Heidi Anderson-Isaacson, residence life director.
UBER-BATHROOMS
For Becca Brice, "dorm" is a dirty word. The recent St. Catherine graduate, who along with Lopez had a major say in how the new student residences would turn out, says times have changed for kids on campus.
Take bathrooms. Decades ago, students on two-to-a-room dorm floors thought nothing of tramping down the hall to shared toilets and showers. But when the side-by-side Henrietta Schmoll Rauenhorst and Susan Schmid Morrison residences were being conceived, it was a given that each apartment in that complex would have its own bathroom.
Not only that, says Brice, but these had to be big bathrooms, large enough so all residents within each suite could prepare for their school days simultaneously. So the sink area is extra-long, and the toilet and shower have their own enclosed, private spaces at either end of the sink area.
For Brice, other critical touches include an enclosed bike garage with security-card access, a kitchenette in each suite for the late-night munchies and a conference room for group study or formal classes. She also likes the stacked TV lounges connected with those elegant spiral staircases.
Lopez, among students who moved in early, was delighted when she saw the 47-inch flat-panel TV in her lounge. "That's not something you expect to see in dorm housing."
But she believes those staircases may be a problem. She recalls two groups of students were watching TV, each in their own lounge, and sound from above filtered down the open stairway to interfere with the viewing below. "I don't know if they thought about that," she says.
Campus residences must be rethought with today's students in mind, St. Catherine and Concordia officials agree.
Students of old were used to sharing small rooms because that's what they did back home, they say. But students today likely have their own rooms and would blanch at sharing sleeping quarters at college. They insist on privacy.
So, individual bedrooms in the St. Kate's residences all have locks; so will the bedrooms in Concordia's residential center, being built on the site of three old-style dorms.
Internet access is crucial, too. The new complexes are designed for wired access, via Ethernet jacks, and wireless access via Wi-Fi. The latter is a given at Concordia, which issues laptops to students and offers campuswide wireless, but is more of a novelty at St. Kate's, which won't guarantee 100 percent reliability in the new residences. It did include PC labs in those halls.
Lopez is more in love with the school-supplied furnishings, including a cushy couch, Lizzy chairs with ottomans, a full entertainment center and office chairs with removable legs so they can be used casually and closer to the floor.
What a relief, she says, not to worry about getting her own furniture, as she had to do in previous years at school.
Julio Ojeda-Zapata covers consumer technology. Reach him at jojeda@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5467.
The reprinted portions of this article were quoted with the author's permission. |