Bluemont Hall renovation creates ‘front door’ for the future of education

Monday, Sept. 9, 2024 — By Rafael Garcia, K-State News and Communications Services

Nearly $4 million in renovations is helping create a welcoming entrance and home in Bluemont Hall for Kansas State University's College of Education.

 

Any teacher will tell you that the beginning of the classroom starts with the front door.

That's why Andrew Bergmeier is excited that Bluemont Hall — home of Kansas State University's College of Education — now has a "front door" that reflects the professionalism and purpose of the people that teaching attracts.

"This renovation shows that K-State cares about having top-tier students taught by top-tier professors and that this happens in top-tier facilities as well," Bergmeier, a senior in elementary education from Hutchinson, said. "When we walk by Bluemont Hall, whether it's as College of Education ambassadors or any other student at K-State, we can point to Bluemont and say, 'This is our education building,' and say it with pride. The space reflects the people."

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The main floor recently underwent a $3.7 million renovation that unified and converted several rooms within the building into modern, inviting and welcoming spaces for all students to learn in, for faculty to teach from and for staff to support student success.

"This renovation helps position the College of Education for the future," said Debbie Mercer, dean of the college. "It has been amazing to watch the faces of students returning to this space, and it has brought all of us so much joy to see them gathering in our new EdCat Lobby."

 

Creating a home for College of Education's student success work

Bluemont Hall, which was built more than 40 years ago, reflects an era when new construction focused heavily on energy conservation. Its solid, monolithic walls helped maintain comfortable temperatures but also kept sunlight out.

Modern construction materials allow for energy efficiency and aesthetics. One of the most striking features of the new design is the addition of a wall of windows that now makes up a prominent entrance to Bluemont from the west.

Inside the building, renovation work transformed what was formerly a collection of smaller classrooms into a student lounge and spaces for the College of Education’s Center for Student Success, which include advising, recruitment, retention and support.

The first-floor renovations created offices for the college's leadership and operational support areas in research, external funding and accounting. The building also features two newly renovated classroom spaces.

With much of the renovation work completed in early August, Mercer and other faculty and staff moved in just days before the start of the fall semester.

The dean said it was an emotional experience seeing this vision come to life.

"In so many ways, this renovation reflects the work we do as educators," Mercer said. "I am so proud of the faculty in this college. They model care and rigor. They support students, they push students and they ensure that all graduates are prepared to truly impact lives."

A second phase of the renovations will create space on Bluemont's ground floor for two College of Education units — NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising and the Office of Educational Innovation and Evaluation — that are currently housed off-campus at the Unger Complex.

 

'A front door for the College of Education'

While part of the renovations were funded as part of a deferred maintenance project selected by the university, a substantial portion of support came from donors.

Matt LaGree, director of development at the Kansas State University Foundation, said it was easy generating excitement for the project among what he called some of the best benefactors in the country.

"Our donors are so in tune with Dean Mercer and her mission that when we rolled out this mission to help open up Bluemont Hall as a front door for the College of Education, they were 100% on board and committed to the project," LaGree said. "They saw the potential for this space not just in how beautiful it could be but how it could serve the needs of students and faculty. They were eager to make it a reality."

The EdCat Lobby — a part of the renovations to Bluemont Hall — has already been a big hit with students of all majors in the first few weeks of the fall semester.

 

The Bluemont Hall renovations feature nine donor-named spaces, including the Dean's Suite, which Dan and Cheryl Yunk supported.

Dan Yunk, who served as a longtime superintendent of Manhattan-Ogden USD 383 and president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees through K-State's College of Education.

Even though he never had undergraduate classes in Bluemont Hall, Yunk said he and his wife have long been impressed with the quality and caliber of the College of Education under Mercer and past deans.

"This renovation emphasizes more of what is going on inside our College of Education," Dan Yunk said. "It's going to help the college do even more great things because it will be more prominent, more inviting, more visible and, most importantly, more welcoming. That's going to benefit all students, staff and alumni. All of us are excited to celebrate our College of Education with pride."

 

Bluemont renovations respect K-State tradition

Bluemont's namesake, of course, is a callback to K-State's origin as Bluemont Central College, and the renovations reflect the university's proud heritage as a land-grant institution and its commitment to a promising future for all.

The renovations give the College of Education a more prominent profile on campus and an inspiring environment to draw upon as its students, faculty and staff set out to solve some of Kansas' biggest challenges in the field of education.

"The College of Education provides the foundation for all programs at K-State," Mercer said. "High-quality teachers are required to help prepare the next engineers, veterinarians, entrepreneurs, architects and future teachers.

"This project is a visible commitment on behalf of K-State to help strengthen the College of Education and ultimately Kansas as we develop innovative programming that results in more qualified educators in classrooms," she continued.

Just outside the windows of the newly created EdCat Lounge, the Bluemont Bell remains. Ever since it was relocated from Anderson Hall in 1996 to what is now Holen Courtyard beside Bluemont, College of Education students have enjoyed the tradition of hearing the bell rung by the dean as freshman education majors, and getting to ring the bell themselves at graduation as teacher candidates.

Bergmeier, the senior elementary education major, said he's looking forward to May when he can ring the bell.

But he knows that every time he and other K-State students walk by Bluemont and the bell, they'll now be able to call it "home of the College of Education" with an even bigger sense of pride.

"If I had to go to school again but with the same people and the same professors, I would do that in the middle of nowhere in a heartbeat," Bergmeier said. "The building is important, but not as important as the people that make it a special place, like Dean Mercer. They make it a special place wherever they are, whether it's the middle of Anderson Lawn or in these awesome new spaces in Bluemont."