Starting next fall, some departments will find themselves with a little more room.

Due to July’s completion of UNC Wilmington’s newest building-currently called by its interim name, Lakeside Hall – the departments of social work, foreign languages and literature, communication studies, political science and film studies will have a new home. The building is still awaiting an official title.

“What this building allows us to do is decompress various areas,” said Paul Hosier, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs.

The departments moving in to the building had generally been pushed into other corners of campus, and in some cases the classes in each department were far apart for students and faculty.

“It will be wonderful to have our classes and offices in the same building, and not have to hike across campus,” said Tammy Bulger, lecturer in the communication studies department.

Located next to Morton Hall, Lakeside Hall is approximately 55,000 square feet.

The first floor is comprised of 15 classrooms, which allow between two and five classrooms to each department.

“Our goal is eventually to have all multi-media installed in these (classrooms), we probably won’t have it all in place at the outset, but our goal is to have every one equipped with multi-media,” Hosier said.

One of the biggest advantages of the building will be the increased technology available to students and professors, said Melinda Johansson, lecturer in the foreign languages and literature department.

The classrooms will also be completely equipped for wireless use with multiple laptop computer plug-ins.

The building will house about 70 offices on the second floor.

“For the first time in a long time, we’ll be able to give some of the part-time faculty offices. They’ll probably share it with other part-time faculty, but at least they’ll have a place where they can hang their hat,” Hosier said.

“We (in the communication studies department) are ecstatic. For me, it means I get my own office again,” Bulger said. The layout of the offices will closely resemble those of Morton Hall with a central secretarial area, and a horseshoe-shaped span of faculty offices around the outside of the secretarial space and adjacent workroom.

“Lakeside Hall” will also include a room for television production and control rooms to house production equipment. The rooms will be used by the communication studies department to teach classes specializing in voice and vocalization, as well as classes concerning elements of production.

Additionally the building will hold three computer labs and a survey research room equipped with one-way glass for observation.

The building was designed with multiple spaces for student gathering, including hallway nooks, an enlarged snack room and a student lounge in the front of the building, according to Hosier.

Stylistically, the building is very open due to the large windows and structural placement of a large medallion-shaped intersection on both the first and second floors of the building.

“We purposely built big windows in this building. If you look at Morton Hall and Dobo Hall, the windows get smaller and smaller. The first thing we told these designers was make big windows,” Hosier said.

It also was designed with a gateway structure adjacent to the side steps. The structure will contain a fountain and will line up visually with the University Union making it another “picture spot” for students and visitors.

“We’re excited about it, we really are. It has been fun to do this,” said Anne Kendrick, faculty assistant in academic affairs.