Salisbury University Breaks Ground on $111.4 Million Guerrieri Academic Commons Facility

With broad smiles and shiny shovels, Salisbury University, its friends and supporters broke ground today on the Patricia R. Guerrieri Academic Commons (GAC).

At 224,071 square feet, the $111.4 million facility will be the largest academic building in SU history. Home for a sorely needed new library, with it comes a reconfiguration of University classroom, research and study space in a manner that planners predict will change campus dynamics.

The GAC is a conscious attempt to transform learning at the institution—in ways which will not only impact how students and faculty interact, but, potentially, how the Lower Eastern Shore relates to the SU academic community.

“The new Academic Commons represents bold and ambitious initiatives,” said President Janet Dudley-Eshbach. “We are a student-centered campus that cherishes the integrity of the teaching and mentoring relationship. Today, learning is solitary and communal, technological and interpersonal. It crosses disciplines and invents new ones. Students and the professors who nurture, stimulate and, at times, provoke their intellectual growth need support, with opportunities and space to gather.

“Through years of thoughtful planning, including consultation and work with nationally recognized minds in library studies, our new Patricia R. Guerrieri Academic Commons has evolved. The building has been designed to foster synergy, community and creativity in learning. It will be transformative for our campus.

“Our library not only serves our campus, it also serves a population of 210,000 in the four counties of Maryland’s Lower Shore,” added Dudley-Eshbach. “With potential for new programs at the popular Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture as well as other centers and services within, including the new Assembly Hall, we are hopeful that the Guerrieri Academic Commons will become a vital civic resource for our region.

“All of this would not have been possible without the generosity and support of the Guerrieri family, who, throughout the decades, has given so much to this institution and to the Eastern Shore. Their name is not new to us: The Guerrieri University Center, the Guerrieri Laboratory Wing—at key moments in the life of our campus, the family has been there for our students, for those who teach them, and for the residents of our region.

“Once again, the Guerrieris show us that learning, in all its facets, is worth cherishing and celebrating. The energy within the Patricia R. Guerrieri Academic Commons will elevate and transform our community in ways that will benefit all.”

Located on the site of the now demolished Caruthers Hall, a one-time demonstration school for elementary-aged students and later a University classroom building, the location is in the academic center of campus. Fulton Hall, home to the liberal and performing arts, is to the north; Henson Science Hall and Perdue Hall, which houses the business school, are to the south. To the west it faces the campus mall, the pedestrian nexus of the University, and to the east, Route 13, a major corridor of the Eastern Shore.

Such a central location is appropriate for its ambitious goal: to become the epicenter of intellectual life for the campus, something the current library, because of its size, cannot do.

Erected in 1957 and remodeled in 1975, Blackwell Library was built for a campus of 2,600 students. Enrollment is now 8,600. Structural limitations will not support its upward expansion. Blackwell is deficient in study and instructional space, and room to house physical collections. According to the American Library Association, Blackwell currently provides less than one-third of the minimum recommended seating for a student body of SU’s size and less than half the necessary space for library materials. Its collections place SU last among its performance peers, and the library cannot add to them because there is no room.

That will change. The GAC is nearly four times larger than Blackwell. It’s also twice as tall (four stories as opposed to two). With a footprint slightly larger than Caruthers, it will be clearly visible from all parts of main campus.

The GAC will allow SU to unite specialized academic programs—now scattered in different buildings—under one roof, adjacent to each another. They include the Writing Center, Center for Student Achievement and Math Emporium—undergraduate-focused programs to be housed on the second floor. In close proximity will be faculty and graduate student services and spaces—a new Faculty Center with meeting rooms and less formal seating designed to bring those from multiple disciplines together; a new designated space for SU’s growing population of graduate students called the Graduate Commons; and the Office for Instructional Design and Delivery, whose services include audio and recording studios for online and distance learning.

With library resources, and librarians, only steps away, students and faculty from these programs will gain a new level of support and possibility. SU is known for its commitment to undergraduate research, and that is expected to flourish in this new environment, with thoughtfully arranged smart classrooms, individual and group study spaces, multimedia labs and flexible technology configurations—student lockers are even wired for recharging mobile devices! Altogether, the building will have 405 desk and laptop computers, over 290 monitors with larger ones for group work and teaching, 18 study rooms and 12 classrooms including two seminar rooms.

The first floor, dubbed “Research Central” by Dr. Bea Hardy, dean of libraries and instructional resources, will be the new home of SU’s Information Technology Help Desk, serving the GAC and campus, and librarian offices for easy student accessibility. She expects it to be a busy area.

A two-story cyber-café will provide dining as well as 24-hour study space. Nearby, booth seating, for casual study, will face the Henson lawn. A soaring 62-foot-tall sky-lit atrium will allow visitors to see how learning is taking place on all four floors.

The first floor will have three entrances, the more formal off Route 13, welcoming the community; the second off Red Square; and the third to the south, facing the Henson lawn.

The third floor will be dedicated to individual, reflective learning. Dominating are the library’s stacks, surrounded by quiet study space, separated by glass panels for noise control. Two group seminar rooms overlook Route 13. This third-floor square footage is almost the same as Blackwell in its entirety, according to Eric Berkheimer, associate vice president of facilities and capital management.

On the fourth floor is the Nabb Center, which is nearly tripling in size. It will have its own classroom where, for example, local history groups may meet; displays for permanent and rotating exhibits; a reading room overlooking the Henson lawn; an archaeology lab; and two climate-controlled, vastly improved and expanded archival storage spaces. One is for documents and other materials and the second for aritfacts. Such collections grow in importance with time, Hardy said, and she envisions Nabb becoming even more prominent as the chief historical repository on Delmarva. Barbara Charles, a consultant who has worked with the Smithsonian Institution, assisted in planning.

A separate meeting/board room will accommodate more than 40. On the north side an Assembly Hall will seat up to 418. Hardy envisions these and other spaces being used for poetry jams, author talks, book-related films, lectures, possibly book clubs, academic conferences and other cultural and social events. A terrace overlooking Red Square provides an expansive view of campus.

The lobby also will have cases for rotating displays. A 48-bell carillon with a keyboard for performances, as well as an automatic player, is another striking feature near the Red Square entrance.

Like Perdue Hall, SU planners will pursue LEED Gold certification in sustainability. Design architects for the building are Sasaki Associates of Watertown, MA, whose work includes award-winning facilities at Ohio State and Drexel universities and the University of Missouri Kansas City, as well as the Richardson Library at Morgan State University. Their Maryland partner and the architect-of-record is the nationally recognized higher education architecture and planning firm Ayers Saint Gross of Baltimore. The contractor is Gilbane Construction, one of the country’s largest family-owned development and construction firms.

The GAC is named in memory of Patricia R. Guerrieri, an SU alumna who, as a student, was known for her vivacious personality, athletic prowess and generous nature. An omnivorous reader, she instilled a love of learning in her children, and three of them attended the campus elementary school. (The site of that former building is the new location of the Academic Commons.) The Guerrieri Family Foundation donated $8 million for the building and library collections.

“Special thanks also go to Governor Martin O’Malley, who throughout his tenure has demonstrated his strong support for higher education,” said Dudley-Eshbach. “And the Eastern Shore’s most effective advocate, Delegate Norman Conway, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, has been instrumental in keeping this project on track.”

According to SU’s Business, Economic and Community Outreach Network, the construction project is expected to have a regional impact of some $238 million and support some 350 jobs in the local area. The GAC is scheduled to open in Fall 2016.