Business Affairs is now doing extensive research to revise and update the Master Plan to accommodate the new demands of the community. The Master Plan is updated every five years; the last time it was updated was 2005.

According to Charles Maimone, Vice Chancellor of Business Affairs, the first step is to create a strategic plan for academics. The strategic plan gives some insight to where the university is headed and the doors it wants to open up. Maimone gave this example, “If UNCW wanted to start an engineering program down the line, you would know the specifics of the types of classrooms, equipment and buildings you would need to accommodate that.”

As far as things on the horizon, the psychology building is on the cusp of starting construction, with a projected completion date of fall 2012.

“The psychology building will be built in the Georgian style, with the outside a mirror image of the nursing building. You should start to see construction on that in December,” said Maimone.

Also, the new and improved Student Recreation Center will start construction January 2011.

“It will open up probably sometime in March of 2012, that just depends on construction,” Maimone said.

Further down the line are plans for a Quad where the nursing building is now. The psychology building will be adjacent to the nursing building, and the other two buildings will be connected over Chancellor’s walk, so students can still walk through to Wagoner Hall.

“The architect designed this portico so you can have an ‘outdoor room’ with walls all the way around and a space in the quad to do ceremonies and things,” Maimone said.

Something important to the people in Business Affairs is input from the UNCW community.

“We’re gathering information from all parts of our community and getting opinions about a variety of things,” Maimone added. “The first survey gave us general information about how people think about our institution and what they want to see. Later, we’ll be more specific about the items people tell us are important so we can further define that.”

As time goes on, Business Affairs will host open meetings so that students, faculty and staff can have a dialogue about what they want to see on campus.

Erica Gilley, senior and President of Panhellenic Council, joined other UNCW student leaders at Rosemary DePaolo’s house for Student Leader Dinner reception. Among the things they discussed the 2010 master plan update was at the top of the list.

“All the new buildings are going to be in the Georgian style. They will start a water management plan, which will allow for better draining of water on campus, and also take additional steps to ensure safety,” Gilley said. “I’m really excited to come back after I graduate and see how UNCW has been transformed.”

Another invitee of the Chancellor’s dinner was Jordan Winn, junior and President of the Residence Hall Association.

“It’s unbelievable to see how much the campus has grown since I first visited back in 2005,” Winn said. “I can’t wait to see more things happen, especially with the academic buildings as they are important to the learning environment of all UNCW students.”

According to Maimone, there is no correlation between updating the master plan and Chancellor DePaolo retiring.

“It was a five year plan, and we’re just updating that plan,” he said.