By Rachel Swann
Jan Greathouse, Director of University Communication and her staff were told at noon Feb. 11 to start packing and in four days they were surrounded by boxes, empty filing cabinets, and cleared bookshelves ready for the movers.
The Office of External Relations and Marketing is camping out on the main floor of the Adams Administration Building until Apr. 1 when university administrators make decisions about where the department will be located until their move to a permanent location.
The offices made an emergency move on Feb. 16 after engineering inspectors deemed the third floor, where they were, structurally unstable.
“When we did the structural analysis, there was an issue of load,” Glen Linthicum, Director of Plant Operations said.
There was too much weight putting stress on the structure. The original intent of the third floor was for attic space not offices.
Adams is on the list of the Trevecca buildings to be renovated.
And, a few weeks prior to the move, financial aid offices were moved from the main floor of Adams to the Martin building to make room for Graduate Psychology.
The original renovation plan was to leave the External Relations and Marketing offices on the third floor while the lower levels of the 66-year-old building were redone to make functional facilities for the Graduate Psychology program.
The offices would later move to the new external relations building expected to be added to Trevecca’s campus as soon as funding is secured.
Moving External Relations and Marketing was an unexpected change of plans.
The eight offices, interns and student workers were told to only unpack the essentials. Boxes spill out of the offices into the hallways, while the shelves are mostly bare. Those in the offices, such Greathouse,, and Tony Stogsdill, Director of Institutional Marketing, quickly packed up their offices and got ready for the moving company to come take them down the stairs.
But the move is temporary.
“We are just camping out here,” Greathouse said.
Linthicum is trying to decide on the next step. The Office of External Relations and Marketing may be moved to portable offices. It is still unclear exactly what will be done, and the President’s Cabinet must approve the final plan. The goal is to find a place for the offices, renovate Adams and eventually move the offices to the new external relations building.
Wherever the temporary offices will be those who work in The Office of External Relations and Marketing will be there for only five to seven months. Linthicum understands moving around so frequently is not ideal, but the decision to move them from the upper floor so soon was a safety issue. He didn’t want to have employees or students in a potentially dangerous situation.
“External Relations has had wonderful cooperation. I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Linthicum said.
