Stevenson Hall, the first academic building at Sonoma State University, is under a complete renovation. The renovation started back in April 2018 and is predicted to go on until 2022. 

The remodel is great for the university, Chief of planning, Christopher Dinno, said that “Stevenson Hall is being re-imagined to include collaborative and informal learning spaces as well as 17 general purpose classrooms and computer labs on the first floor. The Schools of Business and Economics, Education and Social Sciences will look out from the second and third floors into an enclosed courtyard space where students, faculty and staff will be able to work together in an active learning environment.” 

This will bring a new feel to the campus. Bringing in state of the art facilities will not only be aesthetically pleasing to the campus, but it will also bring new improvements to campus to give a more updated look and feel. 

The Stevenson Hall renovation page on the university’s website states “The core objectives of the Stevenson Hall Renovation project are to: Improve campus educational spaces to better meet the needs of the associated disciplines to improve utilization and learning outcomes; Improve building spatial efficiency, classroom utilization, and to provide faculty offices to support planned academic growth; Improve environmental quality;  Reduce resource utilization (sustainability – energy and water); Improve the functionality of outdoor space to increase its usability to students, faculty, and administration; Create a welcoming environment for visitors, students, faculty, and staff.” 

The greatest thing a university can do is put the needs of their community at the top of their list, and the Stevenson remodel will do precisely that. 

Although this project will create a beautiful new addition to Sonoma State, there will be a lot of difficulties throughout this process. Stevenson Hall is the university’s oldest building on campus, it is the home of many different majors and faculty. During the renovation, all these departments and faculty offices will be scattered throughout campus in different locations. 

This not only inconveniences students but faculty which will be moving to different areas on campus as well. As of right now,  the Sonoma State University website has a whole page dedicated to the renovation where you can find frequently asked questions.

It is important to note that the university does not have many large classrooms on campus, and Stevenson Hall is home to one of the larger halls. This could be a cause for concern in terms of placing large-sized classes in the semesters to come during the renovation, which is predicted to last until 2022. 

            In an email sent to the Sonoma State community on August 28, the Stevenson Hall Renovation task force kindly invited students to keep up with the renovation,  they said “In our continued efforts to communicate timely, we are pleased to announce the development of an opt-in listserv for notifications of updates to the website. We will use this method to communicate regular project development summaries as well as announcements regarding the Stevenson Hall Renovation. We will also use it to announce campus meetings regarding the renovation. Please consider signing up for the Stevenson Hall Renovation list to get more frequent updates on this exciting project.” So if you would like to stay up to date with what is happening in Stevenson Hall, as well as stay informed about the moving departments, there are resources for it!