The multicultural building at UW Oshkosh was in great need for a fresh look which means a lot of renovations. Beginning in early spring of the 2023 fiscal year the Multicultural Education Center (MEC), along with a few other areas, were scheduled for some much needed upgrades and renovations. According to Vice Chancellor Robert Roberts, the entire renovation budget was set at $1.276 million and 100% state-funded.
Construction began immediately after getting the notification that they were ready to go, Byron Adams, Director of the Center for Student Success and Belonging and Interim University Diversity Officer, said. Adams also said that the project is progressing well and is expected to be completed in late November if everything continues to go according to plan.
Adams said that this was a long overdue project, and anything state-funded typically goes through a tedious process. It took almost a decade to get the approval they needed to begin the construction since the plans had to be approved by the border regions and then at the UW System.
Most of the renovations being made to the building are just for general upkeep. The MEC is over 80 years old now, and needed a lot of changes to keep up to codes. Many challenges come with renovating this building because it’s a historical landmark, so it’s on the Wisconsin Historical Registry so people are limited to what they can physically do to the building.
While they can’t knock down walls, they have made changes including maintenance to the exterior, including reroofing the shingles, redoing the porch, and more drastic changes like adding an accessibility ramp and adding an ADA-approved bathroom.
All of the changes are going to boost the overall look to the building, but Adams said he hopes it also brings in more student engagement.
“It’s a student-centered building, and so having a facility where students feel like it’s somewhat up to code and standards and having some kind of modern technology, is important,” he said.
This renovation is all part of a campus capital project, of getting UWO up-to-date with some newer facilities, and renovation of some older ones. Because of this change, the Campus Center for Equity and Diversity buildings, including the Women’s Center and the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, will be closing and will not reopen.
Adams strongly believes that a partnership between these groups alongside the MEC will allow the same services to be held in the newly renovated building and in the new addition to Reeve Union, called the Hub.
“We’re hoping that even though we lost the physical space of our LGBTQ+ Center and our Women’s Center, we still have the services and the support… We just lost the physical space,” Adams said. “We’re hoping, like with the Multicultural Center, we can provide some gender pride equity space, again, just to offset that because we’re losing that facility.”
Adams said that students who have the needs for these spaces still exist, and he always wants to make sure the school is still providing services and support to the students who need it.
“The financial issues we’ve been having as an institution… and kind of where things are happening right now with the [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)], in the state, there’s some pushback on DEI services and all that kind of stuff,” Adams said. “And so we’re just looking for new ways to just ingrain and kind of weave in DEI within the school system.”
This new space will allot a community for students, and the campus is excited to be able to keep the facility, Adams said, which came as a result of Black Thursday, a civil rights demonstration at UWO from the late sixties.
“The fact that we’re having it physically as a symbol there and also providing services that actually do that, that bring people in and build community is great,” Adams said. “I’m just glad we’re able to keep that, and I think it’s an exciting project.”
