Shafinaaz Kamrul
Despite a very tight schedule of only three weeks and various behind the scenes administrative issues, during the winter intercession, 30 classrooms around the Pierce College botanical garden received a face-lift.
These classrooms are located in the Math, English, Social Science and Behavioral Science buildings.
“They repainted it,” said math student Susana Vera, 18. “It looks cleaner, brighter and bigger.”
The old chalkboards have been replaced with new white boards.
“This is good,” said Bob Martinez, chairperson of the Mathematics Department.
“This means there is no more chalk dust.”
“There has been much of a cosmetic upgrade in the inside of the building,” he continued.
Air-conditioning vents have been cleaned to make sure that the classrooms are not “stuffy and smelly” in the summer.
“They did a good job,” said another student, Linda D’errico, 59.
“It is really a nicer atmosphere in the classrooms.”
There are also bulletin boards on the freshly painted doors of these classes so that the teachers can use them to hang messages.
These will be useful when a teacher is missing a class and needs to hang the “Will Not Meet” sign-in sheet on the door.
“This was a big issue,” said Paul Nieman, director of Plant Facilities.
“We don’t want anyone hanging anything all over the school, on the walls and doors. Hang them on the bulletin boards.”
According to the Plant Facilities Department, when they started, the budget of these renovations was $250,000.
In addition to regaining the cleanliness of the buildings, this money was also spent on putting new American flags and sharpeners in the classrooms and changing the blinds of the faculty offices in these buildings.
This money was given by the state in accordance with the scheduled maintenance grant facilities offered by Proposition A.
They did not use any money from Program 100- the program that usually pays for all college expenses.
The teachers had a big role to play in this project being done.
“We heard that they had to go knocking on doors to get people to vote for Proposition A and Proposition AA,” said Nieman.
“They were out campaigning for this.”
“They wanted to get major renovations done,” said Martinez. “But I say it’s good that they got these pre-renovations done, because then we don’t have to wait five years before any renovations are done.”
Even though the administration tried to go around it, the 30 rooms were vacated and the contractors had a little over three weeks to finish their project.
The winter session classes that were scheduled to take place in these rooms changed locations.
The renovations started on Jan. 2, and had to be done before the spring semester started on Feb. 4.
Since they were low on shipment the last of renovations were finished on Feb.16, just before President’s Day weekend started.
The next project scheduled is the “clock project.”
Atomic radio controlled clocks will be installed in all the classrooms.
“When a student reads a clock as 2:35 p.m. in a classroom in the Social Science building, another student in the Math building would also be reading their clock as 2:35 p.m.,” said Nieman.
The contractor who won the bid to do these renovations is a former student at Pierce.
“When he walked into one of the classrooms he said, ‘Whoa, this place hasn’t changed ever since the days that I used to go to school here,'” recounted Nieman.
Professor Larry Andre instructs his Philosophy 6 students in the newly remodeled Behavioral Science building, February 16. The remodeling is part of a larger plan to revitalize the Pierce campus (Kristopher Prue-Cook)