Sources: Pat Bosco, 785-532-6237, bosco@k-state.edu;
and John English, 785-532-5590, jenglish@k-state.edu
Websites: http://www.dormsplash.com/universities/kansas-state-university
and http://techflesh.com/10-most-impressive-college-computer-labs/
News release prepared by: Beth Bohn, 785-532-2535, bbohn@k-state.edu

Thursday, March 3, 2011

RAVE REVIEWS: RESIDENCE HALLS, ENGINEERING COMPUTER LAB MAKE BEST-IN-NATION LISTS

MANHATTAN -- Kansas State University is getting national recognition for making students feel at home and giving them one of the most technologically advanced places in the nation to do homework.

DormSplash.com, a residence hall review website, has given K-State a Dormy Award for having some of the highest rated collegiate residence halls.

And Fiedler Engineering Library in K-State's Fiedler Hall has made TechFlesh.com's list of the 10 best college computer labs.

This is the inaugural year for the Dormy Awards, which are based on more than 7,100 student reviews submitted from across the country. K-State and 13 other schools earned the highest average residence hall reviews, ranging from 3.9 to 4.3 on a 5.0 scale. K-State's 4.0 average was also shared by Rice University, the University of Alabama, the University of Missouri at Columbia, Loyola University in Maryland, California State University-Fullerton and Winona State University.

In addition to making the best residence halls list, K-State tied for fourth on DormSplash.com's list of the 14 schools with the best resident assistants. The university's residence halls also earned high marks for location and convenience, quiet study environments, room size and cleanliness.

The rave reviews aren't surprising, said Pat Bosco, vice president for student life and dean of students.

"Our residence halls are full every year for a reason," he said. "This ranking only demonstrates what K-Staters have known for a very long time. I'm so proud of our professional and student staff and students who provide suggestions and the ownership to help us serve our residents better."

K-State's results are available at http://www.dormsplash.com/universities/kansas-state-university. More information on housing and dining services can be found at http://housing.k-state.edu/.

Fiedler Engineering Library earned second place on TechFlesh.com's list of the most impressive collegiate computer labs. The list touts the library's sprawling size of 20,000 square feet, Fiedler Hall's high-tech auditorium and small team learning rooms that are wired for the information age, as well as the library being nearly 100 percent electronic. Other schools on the list, available at http://techflesh.com/10-most-impressive-college-computer-labs/, included MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and West Point.

"This is a well-deserved recognition for the Fiedler Engineering Library," said John English, dean of the College of Engineering. "It's such a marvelous facility, and with our top-notch library staff, we offer our students an exceptional research and study experience. To have that fact recognized with this national ranking, alongside institutions such as Stanford and MIT, is a proud accomplishment for our program."

The engineering library is part of K-State Libraries. It features select online engineering journals and non-circulating engineering reference material such as handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries and standards. Fiedler Hall and the Fiedler Engineering Library were made possible with the help of a donation from Alice Fiedler in honor of her husband, George Fiedler, a K-State alum and distinguished engineer. Find out more about the library at http://www.lib.k-state.edu/branches/fiedler/.