North Texas Daily

After being under construction for most of the last school year, Sage Hall’s first floor reopened with a specific focus on becoming an academic success center.

Sage Hall began renovations last year in the first of three stages. The first stage — the first floor — is now completed. It is now furnished with new chairs, tables and remodeled offices.

The first floor now hosts the tutoring services of the Writing Center, MathLab and Learning Center as well the Dean of Students and Office of Disability Accommodation.

Director of the Writing Center Kimberly Moreland said the goal was to move these tutoring centers to one location to better help students.

“[The new office] is nice and new, but also I think the proximity of being near other resources for students will increase our visibility.” Moreland said. “Our location has changed so much. I know that there are a lot of students that don’t know that we exist, or if they know we exist, they don’t know where we are.”

For most of the tutoring services, it was difficult to garner attention before the move. The Writing Center occupied the center of the third floor of the General Academic Building for most of the past year, while the MathLab was located on the top floor of Sage. Neither location received much foot traffic.

“I didn’t know we had [a MathLab] until a friend made me go, and that was only like three months ago,” biology junior Garret Harding said.

The three major tutoring services at UNT are now side by side on the first floor, with the Writing Center and MathLab flanking the main entrance.

“The idea is that if somebody knows about one of those offices, it forces them to know about all of them,” academic outreach staff Elizabeth Berry said.

Sage Hall’s first floor is now divided in two, with a wide studying space for students on one side and tutoring offices on the other. The Writing Center and MathLab both have glass walls, which is intended to have the effect of normalizing the need for tutoring.

“[We’re] hoping that means that students who maybe wouldn’t normally seek us out feel more comfortable doing so when they see how many people do use these resources,” Berry said.

Those at the Writing Center are also glad to move for a different reason. Their previous location was in rooms with no windows and far from areas that students frequent.

“Now we have windows, and we have an exterior wall, which is fantastic,” Moreland said. “It’s kind of a fishbowl effect, but after having no windows we’re thrilled to have the glass doors.”

She added that the plan is likely to add some frost to the glass in all the spaces in the first floor of the Sage hall to maintain the sense of openness while minimizing distractions.

Already, students are using Sage Hall as a studying center. Berry hopes that if the trend continues, Sage Hall will become a hub for academics by this fall.

The second stage of renovations have begun on the third floor and are expected to be finished next year. Berry also said that the second floor is being renovated into an area to help students after they graduate.

Featured Image: The chalkboard of the location of the previous Writing Center. Emily Olkkola