Why go to the field to watch a baseball game when you can sit on your couch and simply look out the window?
Harlan A. Philippi Hall
62,000 square feet
91 rooms
221 student capacity
Total cost: $8.5 million
A bathroom in every suite.
It doesn’t sound like much, but for some students who are used to walking down the hall in a towel while carrying their soap and shampoo, a bathroom is a big deal.
Bathrooms are just one of the many features in USM’s newest dorm on the Gorham campus.
There are microfridges. Microwaves. Spacious living rooms. Internet hookups in lounges. New furniture.
And then there’s the view.
Why go to the field to watch a baseball game when you can sit on your couch and simply look out the window? Several rooms have just such a view.
With work crews scurrying to take care of the final details, Harlan A. Philippi Hall opened its doors to students yesterday. Two hundred twenty-one of them to be exact.
Named after a long-time UMS administrator, Philippi (pronounced fillip-ee) is the first residence hall built on the Gorham campus since Dickey-Wood in 1970.
Despite the presence of small work crews in recent days, school officials say all suites were completely ready to be occupied. What work is left is concentrated in common areas and should be finished soon, said Carl Hill, assistant director of Facilities Services for Gorham Student Life.
“Substantially the building is done,” said Hill. “There are just some small finishing touches.”
Construction on the $8.5 million project began late last July, just over 13 months ago.
School officials say the dorm was intended to accommodate the increasing number of students choosing to live on campus.
This year there are approximately 1,667 students living in campus housing in Portland Hall and Gorham. That number is up 20 percent from last year’s total of 1,398.
Some say the lack of affordable housing off-campus is convincing more students to live in dorms a little longer than expected.
The deluxe suite-style accommodations in Philippi might be another reason, said Mike Mullett, assistant to the Vice President of Student Development.
The spacious rooms feature a variety of setups. Some suites feature four single bedrooms with a large living room, while others have a combination of doubles and singles.
The dorm is also completely wired for card access to the main entrances and individual rooms.
“Keys are a thing of the past,” said Mullett.
Competition to live in the new dorm was fierce, said Hill. Students were chosen using a formula combining GPA and number of credit hours.
Early in the selection process, Mullett said there were many more female selections than male. That’s a trend that reflects traditional academic statistics, he said.
Mullett said he isn’t sure what the overall impact of the new dorm will be.
“I’ll be interested to see how things change,” he said.
The parking situation was taken into consideration, according to Dave Early, executive director of Facilities Management. Although there will be an additional 221 students living on campus, a new parking lot in back of Philippi and another new lot off of Husky Drive provide 150 new parking spaces. Though the number of new spaces doesn’t equal the number of new students on campus, Early said a parking study revealed around two-thirds of resident students have cars. Therefore, the number of new spaces is almost equal to the amount of expected new traffic, he said.
Early said he’s excited that the new dorm is attracting more upper class students to campus.
“In the past the upper classmen had to move off campus,” said Early. “A lot of times students would meet freshman year and move off campus the following year because it was more attractive.”
Mullett said the new dorm also moves the center of campus closer to the campus center. He hopes the new setup might attract more students to on-campus activities.
Hill said the new dorm is good for the University.
“If this is representative of where USM is headed, USM is headed in a good direction,” he said.
Executive Editor Steve Peoples can be contacted at: [email protected]