December 2003: Vol. 83, No. 1December 2003: Vol. 83, No. 1
rior to designing and building the new Student Learning Center, which can be seen on our cover and from most any vantage point in the middle of campus, the University dispatched key staff members to a variety of prestigious institutions—Emory, George Mason, Maryland, and Wisconsin—looking for a prototypical learning-library facility to perhaps pattern ours after.
But, try as they might, the UGA contingent couldn't find one.
The reason, as we are now aware, is because there's really nothing like this 200,000-square-foot "Taj Mah-Teach," as faculty are calling it, in the entire country.
"We didn't find anything that combined teaching, learning, and library functions in one facility," says university librarian Bill Potter, who was part of the contingent and heavily involved in the planning of SLC. "And wherever we went—at George Mason, for example—they told us that they didn't do enough with their new building. We didn't want to make the same mistake."
I think you're safe there, Bill, as our Student Learning Center story/photo essay will attest.
But it bears noting that the pressure was on people like Potter and principal architect Paul Cassilly because of the reputation of other facilities on this campus, including: a.) the Ramsey Center, a veritable fitness mall that was named the best student recreation center in the country by Sports Illustrated, b.) the Performing Arts Center, whose Hodgson Hall was quickly deemed the Atlanta Symphony's favorite place to play as soon as it opened, c.) the newly renovated Dan Magill Tennis complex, which was already the finest amateur tennis facility in the country before its recent $7.5 million upgrade, and d.) the new Complex Carbohydrate Research Center on Riverbend Road, home to faculty who are recipients of a new $6.7 million grant for research on cancer and Parkinson's disease.
And let's not forget the natural architecture of North Campus. When the Baltimore firm Ayers/Saint/Gross was hired to create a Physical Master Plan for UGA, Adam Gross noted that, in terms of both physical beauty and the integration of town and gown, there are perhaps three great college towns that stand above all others: Charlottesville, Va. (UVA), Chapel Hill, N.C. (UNC), and Athens.
"There is a pervasive love for this place, more so than anywhere else we've worked, including UVA and UNC-Chapel Hill," said Gross. "Broad Street frames one of the greatest college towns in America."
Gross also believes UGA does the best job of maintaining its campus, recalling that "when UVA president John Casteen visited UGA, he went home and said to his people, 'Why is the University of Georgia so beautiful in comparison to us?'"
The Student Learning Center lifts our reputation even higher with facilities so attractive and essential to academic success that it may make studying in one's room obsolete.
