After 22 years of being housed in Mabee Fine Arts Center’s “basement,” the William Fenna and Emily Rogers Department of Communications is moving to J.G. Lile Hall in the fall of 2012. This will be the first time the School of Humanities’ departments (communications, English and modern foreign languages) will be under the same roof.
The school had a total of more than $1 million in donations from a variety of sources, including the Hammons Foundation, the Rogers Foundation, the Arnold Family Foundation and alumni. It will be used to renovate areas of J.G. Lile Hall, including new technology and furniture in the classrooms, new computer labs and office and meeting space.
“We’ve outgrown our space in Mabee,” said Dr. Jeff Root, dean of the School of Humanities, about the communications department’s current location. “We had half as many majors 22 years ago. We have more than 100 now.”
The department’s student-led publications (The Signal online and newspaper, yearbook, photo lab and TV studio) also will be moving to the Evans Student Center’s Banquet Rooms adjacent to Lile Hall.
“It will be excited to be in a new area, but it has been nice to be close together [in the current department area],” said Aly Smith, a freshman mass communications and graphic design major who works on the Ouachitonian yearbook staff. “It has been cool to be close together down here; it’s like our own little world.”
In addition to more space for the publication offices, the new communications department will have two Mac computer labs. One is going to be funded from the Arnold Family Foundation.
“A new Mac lab will be in an area on the third floor called the Bill and Sharon Arnold Multimedia Suite,” Root said. “Bill and Sharon are the parents of Curtis Arnold, a graduate and member of the Board of Trustees, and Johnpaul Arnold, a graduate of Ouachita’s communications department.”
Some of the communications funding will go to help renovate areas of R.A. Lile Hall which houses the departments of English, modern foreign languages, history and the Daniel & Betty Jo Grant Center for International Education.
“I think it will have a positive effect for the Humanities,” Root said. “It will be good to have everyone in the Humanities in one building so we can work more closely together.”
Photo courtesy of The Signal archives.
Caption: The William Fenna and Emily Rogers Department of Communications is moving from its current location in Mabee Fine Arts Center.
