Students, faculty and staff in the School of Social Work will be moving to a state-of-the-art facility, and the Graduate School will move to the heart of North Campus. In addition, pre- and post-contracts and grants support staff will be under the same roof for the first time.
The moves, announced by Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Pamela Whitten, aim to give students the best possible learning environment and create synergies that support the key institutional priorities of enhancing graduate education and the university’s research enterprise
The School of Social Work will be moving to the Williams Street building that currently houses the Graduate School, and the Graduate School will be moving to Terrell Hall. The Office of Sponsored Programs and the Contracts and Grants Division will move to Tucker Hall, the School of Social Work’s current home.
“Our overarching goals are to provide the best possible learning environment for students while also managing our resources as efficiently and strategically as possible,” Whitten said.
The riverfront building that will house the School of Social Work was constructed in 1857 as the Athens Cotton and Wool Factory and was purchased in 2008 by the UGA Real Estate Foundation. Renovations in 2009 have transformed it into an academic facility with the latest instructional technologies.
The space in Terrell Hall that will be the new home of the Graduate School previously housed the communication studies department, which moved to Caldwell Hall after the renovation of the Jackson Street Building for use by the College of Environment and Design.
Tucker Hall, the future home for contracts and grants support staff, was built in 1961 as a residence hall and in 1974 was converted to classroom and office space for the School of Social Work.
Whitten noted that the moves are still in the planning stages and that details on their timing will be announced after they are finalized.
Under a new space allocation protocol implemented this year, units are invited to formally submit space requests to the Office of Space Management in the Division of Finance and Administration. All requests, along with an inventory of space across campus, are presented to a newly formed cross-campus Space Recommendation Task Force.
The task force reviews requests, considers current and upcoming space needs across campus and then makes recommendations to Whitten, who makes a final recommendation to UGA President Jere W. Morehead for approval.