While the focus has been on adapting to the challenges brought on by COVID-19, Lipscomb also has been plenty busy this summer with more construction than in the last 15 years.
The campus has a new parking garage, updated residence halls, a new turf football field at the Academy, updates to academic buildings and there’s even a new Chick-fil-A.
August 2020 was the deadline for a new “200-spot parking garage,” announced by President Randy Lowry in the 2018-19 convocation.
“The parking garage will be finished on time,” said President Lowry in a recent interview with Lumination.
And no only will it be done in time, but it has 400 spaces instead of the previously mentioned 200 spaces.
“Most of the parking done by residential students in the Stokes area, behind Stokes School will be able to happen on campus,” said Lowry. “That’s a huge step forward in convenience and also maybe in security, although we don’t have major problems over there (at Stokes).
“I hope that people like the looks of it, and if you don’t look twice, it looks like an academic building,” said Lowry.
The outdated freshman women’s dorm, Elam, has been updated to bring it up to modern times.
“It was built about 60 years ago. It was in need of not just a little fix-up, but we took it down to the concrete and built the entire thing back,” Lowry said.
Students living in Elam will no longer have the traditionally styled community bathrooms but now have private communal baths.
“We built back a series of private baths,” said Lowry. “You’ll have your own shower, sink, mirrors and all that, and that is your private bath for that period of time” that the student is using it.
“They even put lights along the hallway, so you can turn the corner and see what’s open and what’s not,” said Lowry.
As for other residence halls, Fanning got a new air conditioning unit.
Lumination has chronicled the problems with the old A/C system. Last fall there were students even sleeping in the lobby due to the air conditioning unit going out in the middle of fall and the temperature in dorm rooms reaching 96 degrees at some points.
There has been a new full-service Chick-fil-A added to campus in place of the fast service Chick-fil-A located in the student center, and there are several renovations to Mcfarland in the works.
The second and third floors of the Mcfarland Science Center have new coats of paint and several other changes. Biology is the largest major at Lipscomb, so Mcfarland was in need of an update as well.
And, as noted above, in addition to the changes on the university campus, Lipscomb Academy also has installed a turf football playing surface during the summer.
