Fall 05 (pdf) - University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

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UW OSHKOSH MAGAZINE
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UW OSHKOSH MAGAZINE
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Oshkosh State Normal
Oshkosh Normal
Built 1871
Expanded 1894,1900
Destroyed by fire 1916
In addition to donating the land, the city
of Oshkosh gave $30,000 toward the
construction of the building, paid for
through a special tax levy. The balance
of the $43,000 building was paid for by
the state through the sale of state-owned
swamp and overflowed lands. Local
architect William Waters, who designed
the Oviatt House, the Wall House and
the Grand Opera House among many
others, designed the original building.
The building funds did not provide
enough to furnish and run the school,
however, so the building sat vacant for a
year. For most of its 46 years, it served
the majority of the school’s needs, with
many additions turning it into an unyielding
structure of twisted hallways and
stairwells. Most of the building was slated
for demolition before a fire destroyed it.
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“At UW Oshkosh, we embrace
the integration of the three Ps:
people, place and program,” Chancellor
Richard H. Wells said. “We are
always striving to provide first-rate
facilities for our quality people and
programs.”
Quality programs and innovative
services bring credibility to the
campus, but also pose challenges. For
instance, the College of Nursing’s
Living Healthy Community Clinic
(LHCC), which provides primary care
services for Winnebago County’s uninsured,
saw huge growth
in the number of patients
served over recent years.
While the people served
received needed medical
and nursing attention and
the students involved got
great hands-on service,
the facility—cramped and
hard to find in a remote
corner of the Nursing
Education building’s basement—struggled
to be
enough for all people.
Beyond the actual
space in the facility, patients
struggled with what
so many on campus find
a primary problem: parking.
And patient surveys
revealed that they felt
intimidated if they had to
reach their appointment in
between classes when students
swarmed the halls.
So a new, off-campus facility,
placed in an unused healthcare office
on Doctor’s Court, offered plenty of
parking and a building that allows
patients a covered drop-off space.
Moreover, there is no concern about a
mob of students hurrying to their next
class.
Although one healthcare facility
replaced another, logistical and
structural changes were necessary. Like
so many other “campus” buildings,
the new Living Healthy Community
Clinic needed to have updates to
comply with Americans with the Disabilities
Act (ADA) and other codes.
Simply widening doors to make them
handicapped accessible meant relocating
electrical service or plumbing,
which meant moving cabinetry and
countertops.
What should have been simple
updating turned into major overhauls.
Facilities management is accustomed
to these challenges, which make their
jobs exciting.
And the programming and
outreach rewards for their efforts are
plentiful. North of Milwaukee, UW
Oshkosh’s LHCC is the only such
Steve Arndt inspects the steam line and condensate
construction project along High Avenue.
clinic to offer total healthcare planned
and managed by nurses and nurse
practitioners. Although medical doctors
and other volunteers collaborate
to make the program successful, most
healthcare decisions are between the
nurse practitioners and their patients.
With great space in which to practice,
the nursing practitioners offer invaluable
experience to the students studying
with them.
“The students can’t buy the
experience they get interning with us,”
said Leona Whitman, director of the
Health Place Nursing Center. “This
clinic provides a unique academic
role for the students to work with
clients who come from all walks of life,
from the homeless to workers without
benefits—a population that often
presents multiple health concerns.”
This kind of community service,
educational opportunity and citywide
outreach exemplifies the university
mission, and offers tangible rewards
for the capital funds invested.
But the new Living Healthy
Community Clinic is just one need
among many—many programs, many
students, many buildings. In order
to best serve the community and the
students, changes needed to be made.
And the challenge of which program
and facility most needs attention can
be daunting.
Steve Arndt, director of facilities
management, says that for decades
little attention had been given to the
physical needs of campus beyond
necessary maintenance. The UW
System’s budget simply was stretched
too thin for the state’s 13 campuses
to address their needs for much-needed
physical infrastructure. As a result,
UW Oshkosh’s last major new building
was Kolf Sports Center in 1971.
Even “simple” projects, like the relocation of the Living
Healthy Community Clinic to unused space on Doctor’s
Court, can involve plenty of expense and logistics.
At left, the waiting room undergoes a makeover to
become an attractive space (below).
“Each new building, which costs
$30-$50 million, requires the UW
System to carefully evaluate the needs
and priorities of each campus and the
System as a whole,” Arndt said. “There
just are not the funds to fulfill every
need.”
So the Space Planning Committee,
made up of UW Oshkosh deans and
senior administrators, was formed to
help get decision-makers more closely
linked to the challenges at hand. This
group of visionaries makes decisions
about the direction campus buildings
need to take to meet educational and
community objectives.
While the money for new buildings
comes from the capital funds
accounts, all agency funding provides
$10-$12 million annually for repairs
and renovations to existing facilities.
These funds help to address the
ADA shortfalls, such as remodeling
the Nursing Education Building’s
restrooms that did not allow wheelchair
accessibility, a project this past
summer; cosmetics, like replacing the
metal fascia on Kolf Sports Center;
Auditorium
Built 1888
Demolished 1933
This structure was initially built as a gym,
the first of its kind in the Wisconsin
Normal System. It was later used for
classrooms, then storage, until the 1916
fire pressed it into service as the school’s
auditorium.
Gymnasium
Built 1907
Demolished 1961
When opened in 1909, it was the state’s
second largest gymnasium. For a period
after the 1916 fire, it was used as classroom
space. The building was torn down
to make room for Polk Library.
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