By NATE KING
Salina Post
Hutton Construction project superintendent for K-State's newest residence hall told Salina Post despite material transportation delays tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and muddy conditions, construction teams are ahead of schedule for opening of a new residence hall this fall.
Last month, Mike James, executive director for administration and finance at K-State Salina and Max Wilhaus, Hutton Construction project superintendent gave us a tour and update on the progress being made on the $9.1 million structure.
More students equals more housing
As college campuses across the nation continue to see enrollment numbers drop, Kansas State University’s Aerospace and Technology Campus, 2310 Centennial Road, continues to see more applications each year. For the fall 2022 semester, K-State Salina had 795 students, a 7.3 percent increase from year before. For the past five years the campus's professional pilot program has seen substantial enrollment growth.
Kyle Chamberlin, director of student life at K-State Salina, said the current residence halls, Harbin and Schilling, weren't enough to meet enrollment demands or new residency requirements.
"The last three years now we've been full in Harbin and Schilling Hall," Chamberlin said. "We want to be able to offer more housing for students to stay here. The stats are proven that if a student starts on campus and lives on campus, they will have success and more success across the board."
In the fall of 2022, Kansas State University began requiring incoming Manhattan campus first-year students to live on campus during their first two semesters.
Based on data for fall 2018, K-State had an 87.6 percent retention rate for freshmen who lived on campus compared to a 79.9 percent rate for freshmen living off campus. For fall 2019, 5 percent more first-year students who lived on campus stayed in school as compared to first-year students who lived off campus.
Starting in 2023, incoming, full-time, degree-seeking, first-year undergraduate students at K-State Salina will be required to live on campus in one of the residence halls for their first two semesters of enrollment.
K-State Salina, a global aerospace leader
Alysia Starkey, K-State Salina dean and CEO, said the expansion of the university's housing footprint, by adding 104 living spaces, would create a greater sense of community on campus.
“This new residence hall is another step forward in establishing our campus as a global aerospace leader,” Starkey said. “Studies show students earn better grades and are more likely to finish their degrees when living on campus. This ideal space allows our students to build their network, further their goals and find support that is important to them. When students are empowered by a positive community, they become leaders of tomorrow.”
What is driving all of these future pilots to K-State Salina? In 2021, K-State Salina secured 17 new Garmin enabled aircraft thanks to a philanthropic donation through the K-State Foundation. Also, the university recently added two new programs, master of social work and bachelor's degree in aviation management.
As more people move to Salina to pursue a career in aviation, K-State Salina sees this moment as an opportunity to support the local housing market and the community as a whole.
“K-State Salina’s commitment to the community and its enrollment growth is realized by the construction of this new residence hall,” said Tim Rogers, executive director of the Salina Airport Authority. “This not only helps students but reduces the housing pressure in Salina and benefits the Kansas economy from increased enrollment. The success of K-State Salina has a positive impact on our local community and the surrounding region.”
Style and amenities
Over half of the students currently enrolled at K-State Salina are majoring in aviation. Aviation students are regularly logging flight hours both during the day and late into the evening. James said this presented K-State with a unique challenge- how and when do we set meal times at dining halls?
"Many students are busy with flight hours into the evening, a lot of times till 11 p.m. at night," James said. "The university can't afford to keep the dining hall open all hours of the night, so we decided to bring the dining center to them."
Each floor of the new residence hall will be equipped with a kitchenet, which will include an oven with a fire suppression hood, a fridge, sink, and microwave oven.
Chamberlin said not only will the kitchens provide space for future university sponsored cooking programs, but they will allow international students to cook foods they are comfortable and familiar with.
"It's a great thing to be able to walk into your kitchen, and be able to cook the foods you want to cook, from where ever you are from," Chamberlin said. "Students can use like oil and those types of things in these kitchens, because we'll have the suppression hoods and all the things to ensure safety."
Even the front door lobby of the residence hall will feature a kitchen, giving the entire building a homey and cozy feel.
"One of the reasons why when you first walk in there's a kitchen, is we're hoping, to coin a phrase from Derek Jackson over in Manhattan, 'When you make cookies, you make friends,'" Chamberlin said. " Also just to have that easy flow of mom or dad who just wanna drop some things off, and cook."
The residence hall will have both single and double rooms. Both room layouts will come with a walk-in closet. Private shower and bathrooms will be located on each floor for residents to utilize.
James said that the entire building will be keyless, meaning that digital keycards will be the only way to enter into the building, and to gain access to their dorm rooms.
The vison and goals for the future
In 2020, K-State Salina ran out of residential living space for incoming freshman. University administrators, in coordination with student government began to discuss what a new residence hall would look like, and if a new residence hall was needed, given enrollment declines experienced by other major universities.
"Leadership did a really good job of not hitting the gas right away and just saying, 'Yeah, build it now. And, you know, create all this debt,'" Chamberlin said. "Then students started getting involved in the conversation, where we asked them-' Do you think we need a new hall?'"
Chamberlin said campus leaders in Manhattan helped formulate the best strategy when it came to funding and logistics of building a new hall.
"In the second year of planning is when it really started to kind of gain some momentum," Chamberlin said. "Main campus was a huge help to us. Derek Jackson and the Student Life team up there gave us a bunch of suggestions on how to get a dorm built, what type to build plans. I mean, it was extremely helpful to be connected in that way. Thankfully the foundation has been extremely helpful in getting this project off the ground."
When asked about future resident hall builds on campus, Chamberlin said campus leaders are already having discussions on whether another residence hall will be needed in the not too distant future.
"The big thing now is, 'How many years are you going to be full?' and thankfully, with enrollment, we've just increased and increased. So it was easy to say, we're gonna need it."