Wayne State University will celebrate the opening of its six-story, $19.9 million North Residence Hall with grand opening ceremonies at1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18. A time capsule is being prepared to give a future generation of students an idea of what campus life was like at the turn of the 21st century. Some of the contents, including a letter from Wayne State President Irvin D. Reid, will be announced at the event.
North Residence Hall, which opened in time for the new school year that began Sept. 3, houses 370 students, mostly freshmen. Built with a central kitchen and dining room, it enables Wayne State to offer a traditional room-and-board plan to students for the first time in decades.
Located on Williams Mall at Anthony Wayne Drive in the heart of the main campus, the L-shaped residential building is just steps from the university's Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Recreation and Fitness Center and the Student Center Building, all popular with students. In addition to the Warrior Dining Room, the building includes a grill with a lunch counter, an activities room and a convenience store called Wayne's Trail, which will open soon.
Rooms are equipped for high-speed Internet access, cable television and telephone. Each residential floor (two through six) has two student lounges and a study room. Most rooms are for double occupancy and all have private baths.
Providing additional undergraduate housing with meal programs is part of the university's strategy for encouraging more students to reside on campus, which fosters a spirit of community and enhances vitality.
The time capsule will be sealed at a later date by a specialty firm. It will be buried under a marker in a courtyard between North Residence Hall and a companion residential building that is under construction on adjacent land.
The new residential facility is part of an unprecedented building boom that has seen more than $108 million in new construction at Wayne State this year. The university held a grand opening last week for its $18.5 million Welcome Center and, on Oct. 10, will celebrate the grand opening of its $64 million Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Building on The Detroit Medical Center campus. A $6 million WSU Bookstore, adjacent to the Welcome Center, will open in October.
Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 14 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.