A Green and Growing Campus

Southern continues its development as a thoroughly modern campus, with a new School of Business having opened last summer, and an expanded library and new science building in progress. The university’s master plan also calls for a new fine arts center, an expansion of Moore Fieldhouse and a building to house Southern’s health and services programs. 

The renovated former Student Center opened in summer 2012 as a new home for the School of Business. Encompassing about 23,000 square feet, the building houses faculty offices, classrooms, conference and meeting rooms and a Wall Street-style trading room. 

Design is proceeding for a 98,332-square-foot science building that will house teaching and research laboratories for Southern’s growing programs in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines, which have seen enrollments increase by more than 17 percent in recent years. Embracing an innovative, sustainable design, the building will be home to nanotechnology, physics and optics, cancer research, astronomy and other sciences.

Following completion of a 135,000 square-foot addition that doubles the size of Buley Library, the orginal portion of the building is being completely renovated. The new-look library will incorporate general classroom space, a learning commons, information technology operations offices, an adaptive technology area, faculty offices and storage for the university’s art collection, which will also be displayed throughout the building.

Campus parking availability should be improved by the construction of a new, 1,200-space parking garage on the site of Lot 7, at the side of Moore Fieldhouse on Wintergreen Avenue. The project will be completed early in the spring 2013 semester and will net about 800 parking spaces for students and employees.

Sustainability Efforts Earning National Recognition

Its school colors may be blue and white, but Southern has stamped itself as one of the up-and-coming green campuses in the nation. 

The university recently placed fourth of 98 schools in the country in reducing its electricity use during the Campus Conservation Nationals 2012, a competition among colleges and universities to reduce energy consumption. As one of the top 10 schools in the conservation contest, Southern also will receive a credit for 200 megawatt hours of renewable energy from Sterling Planet, a company that works with organizations toward becoming carbon neutral. The 200 megawatt hours of free energy should be enough to power one of the university’s smaller residence halls for about a year.

Other recent sustainability efforts at Southern include:

• Becoming  a charter signatory to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which calls for schools to bolster their conservation efforts in pursuit of eventual carbon neutrality.
• Purchasing graduation caps and gowns made from recycled plastic bottles.
• Adopting a single-stream recycling program. 
• Reducing pollutants by 50 percent through burning ultra-low sulfur fuel in the campus Energy Center.

Also, this fall Southern will launch a Sustainable Living Learning Community, in which students can opt to live in a residence hall with sustainability as a focus.

Learn more about sustainability at Southern.