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Well I'm here today with Vice President for Student Affairs, Joe Paul. And we're in the
beautiful courtyard just outside of Hattiesburg Hall, now Hattiesburg Hall welcomed students
as a resident 100 years ago, so we're celebrating a birthday of sorts but we're also celebrating
the rich history of student life on campus and what Hattiesburg Hall has contributed
to that student life. So, Dr. Paul, keeper of all memories of student things, tell us
a little bit about the history of Hattiesburg Hall and what it's meant to the progress of
the university. Well it may be our most significant historical building, to think that the very
first fall this place opened that our female residents lived in Hattiesburg Hall and that
students have lived there every single year, 100 years of delivering higher education is
really significant. In the first fall of 1912, not only did the female residents live in
Hattiesburg Hall but the clinic was housed on the first floor. So how's it changed over
the years? Well it's had many integrations, for most of its history, Hattiesburg Hall
has housed female students. We converted it to house male students in the late 1970's,
and that was quite a time, that was a time when Greek men in particular had sort of dominated
student government and intramurals, and a group of student independent men moved into
Hattiesburg Hall, named themselves the Hattiesburg Hallers, and became very active in student
politics and intramurals and in fact Jim Borsig who is now the new president at MUW was student
body president in one of the original Hattiesburg Hallers. One of the Hattiesburg Hallers. Right.
We're also celebrating something new, and planning for the future of new resident's
life and residents all on the campus, tell us about that. We are, we have received board
approval to proceed with Century Park two, which will be a 956 bed, multi building community
immediately south of Fourth Street. We will raise half of Bond Hall, Van Hall and Scott
Hall and create beautiful new living accommodations for freshmen, some upper classmen, and some
beautiful outdoor space as well. And that's going to change a lot of the look of the campus
too, how's that going to be different? It's going to be incredibly beautiful for one thing,
there's a grand north entrance to the Cochran Center that's really blocked by Scott Hall,
and when those buildings are raised the community will be built in such a way that will create
a mall effect as we have on the front of the campus, running through the Cochran Center
all the way to the Century Park Learning Center. We're going to call it Spirit Park, and there
will be many opportunities for outdoor engagement there, it'll be quite beautiful and transformational.
So with about, I guess with the new resident halls we'll have about 36 hundred beds, what
kind of a difference does that make to student life, what kind of difference does it make
to the campus? It makes an incredible difference, I mean these will be state of the art, luxurious,
efficient facilities that will be attractive to recruiting the best and brightest students.
But most folks don’t realize what a resident's life can play in student success. We know
that students who live on campus tend to get acclimated to the campus faster. They get
engaged, they get involved, they do better academically, they persist and they graduate.
Can you give us an estimated timeline on the new resident's halls? I can, we hope to raise
the buildings this summer, break ground in November, and be open for the fall term of
2014. And who's going to live there? Mostly freshmen, all of our Lucky Day scholars will
live in the Learning Community so that will include some upperclassmen as well. You mentioned
living in Learning Communities, I'm not sure everybody quite understands what that is.
Well, in this example our Lucky Day citizenship scholars are very focused on community service,
so they will all live together, they'll have upper class mentors and there will be specific
programming in the resident's halls that will sort of guide them on their journey as servant
leaders at Southern Miss. So is there going to be a party for Hattiesburg Hall? Absolutely,
we have to have that 100th birthday party, and it'll be next Thursday, April the 12th
at 3 pm. The residents of Hattiesburg Hall, the resident's life staff invite faculty staff
and other students to come. We'll have more than 100 cupcakes there, and we'll have a
good birthday party to celebrate. You'll need more than 100 cupcakes. We'll have all we
need. Dr. Joe Paul, happy birthday Hattiesburg Hall.