University of the Pacific recently celebrated the opening of its newest residential hall on campus.
A ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Tuesday, Aug. 11, outside of the new building. Tours of the building followed after the ceremony where university board of regents, alumni, faculty and Pacific students had the opportunity to go inside the three story building.
When the residential hall opens it will add 386 new student beds, 12 study spaces, and three faculty and staff-in-residence suites.
“This Southwest Hall is significant for us in so many different ways because the history of University of the Pacific is so important to our institution,” Pacific President Christopher Callahan said on Tuesday. “The original Southwest Hall, was built in 1924 when we first moved from the Bay Area to here in the Central Valley, one of the first 10 buildings.”
He said when it first opened, Southwest Hall was originally a women’s dormitory.
Callahan acknowledged alumni and former residents of the original Southwest Hall who attended the celebration. Those in attendance also included California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, University of the Pacific Regents, faculty and students.
“Today is about much more than a building,” said Leticia Robles, chair of University of the Pacific’s Board of Regents. “It is about our students and our commitment to providing an environment where they can thrive.”
The new state-of-the art residential building marks the 12th residence hall on the Stockton Campus, university officials said. The new building sits where the former Southwest Hall once stood, before it was destroyed for the construction of the new building.
Maria Blandizzi, vice president for Student Life at University of the Pacific, told The Record Southwest Hall will primarily house second year students.
“Our sophomores have the opportunity to live in Southwest Hall with the intention that we’re really connecting them, right, to their peers in their second year class as well as to faculty as they continue on in their academic journey here at the university,” Blandizzi said.
Pacific students and faculty will move in to Southwest Hall on Saturday, ahead of Pacific’s first day of school on Aug. 24, said Josh O’Connor, assistant vice president for student life at University of the Pacific.
“As regents, we know that learning does not begin and end in the classroom. Students learn where they live, study, and build friendships,” Robles said. “It is in our residence halls that they find belonging and confidence that will shape the rest of their lives. One of the most inspiring aspects of this project is how it connects Pacific’s future with its past.”
Southwest Hall reimagined
While construction continued on Southwest Hall on Tuesday, when fully done, students and faculty can expect double and single rooms, three apartment suites with full kitchens and living areas for faculty and staff, community restrooms, and multipurpose rooms and lounge spaces, Blandizzi said.
“We want our students to experience the feelings of support every day by their peers, by their faculty who know their names, by the staff who guide and mentor them,” Blandizzi said. “We want our students to engage socially and academically and to truly know that Pacific is their home and their community.”
Although the outside of the residential hall may resemble the original structure, the inside is “a completely 21st century building,” Blandizzi said.
“The original building was three buildings cobbled together over 100 years. It actually didn’t flow the way that we wanted it to and it was not ADA accessible,” O’Connor said. “Now, we have a three story building, completely ADA accessible, two elevators. We have a lot of sustainability built into it. This is our first building on the Stockton campus, that has three stream. It’s built for waste, recycling and compost in our trash rooms. We also have solar power on the roof to help with the heating of the water.”
The cost for the project was “over $40 million,” Blandizzi said. The project took 18 months to complete.
Faculty living in residence among Pacific Students
During the ceremony, Blandizzi announced Pacific’s new faculty in residence program.
“Our faculty here believe deeply in the student experience. It’s one of the reasons why I was drawn to coming to the University of Pacific, that it is truly a shared community as we work and live and breathe and teach and mentor our students,” Blandizzi said. “It is the faculty in residence program which will have full time members of the Pacific faculty who applied to live here, who will serve as role models and mentors to students living in the residence halls and in on campus housing not only in Southwest Hall, but in a variety of spaces on the university campus in our housing facilities.”
Jacqueline Smith-Ratliff, who teaches graduate level psychology at Pacific, is one of the faculty members who is moving into Southwest Hall on Saturday with her family.
“I decided to apply for faculty in residence because it sounded really exciting for me. As a therapist, I work with people all the time so I thought that it would take my experience to another level,” Smith-Ratliff told The Record. “I would build relationships with these students and help them acclimate and discover different things about themselves. Being a resource for these students, is necessary. I really wanted the opportunity to do it, so I’m very excited that I got the opportunity.”
Smith-Ratliff said her husband and her 8-year-old son will also be living with her on campus.
“My son is very excited. He’s excited about meeting new people,” Smith-Ratliff said. “Being exposed to the positivity of the university, will be very, very good for him.”
The Oakland native said when she attended UC Berkeley, she became home sick and eventually returned home. She hopes to make Pacific students experience “more comfortable for them.”
Smith-Ratliff is looking forward for the socials this year. She said she already started planning for Halloween, a Thanksgiving dinner and a white elephant party.
“The program gives us an opportunity to step across traditional boundaries between the classroom and the rest of campus life. It allows faculty to be more visible, accessible, and present in the everyday lives of our students. It allows us to see our students in a different context too,” said Jeffrey Hole, director of the first-year experience at the University of the Pacific. “Not simply as students sitting in our classrooms, but as people living, learning, figuring things out, and becoming who they are.”
“In some ways, we are demystifying, even humanizing the role of the professor,” Hole added.
Memories of Southwest Hall
Among those visiting the new Southwest Hall were Pacific alumni and longtime friends Charlyn Piper and Lori Maldonado Hall, both graduated from Pacific in 1979, with majors in liberal studies.
Piper lived in the original Southwest Hall building in 1976, she said.
“I remember, well, the room itself. I remember the walls were plaster, so you couldn’t put anything up on the walls. There was no command strips back in those days. I also remember the radiator heater is all that we had, which was like right under the window. But it was really a great experience living here,” Piper said. “It was my first time at a college, I came my sophomore year, and very small room, but it was just, the people were great. We would run down the halls and go see other people.”
Piper, a Granite Bay native, now lives in Modesto. She said it was “very emotional” to return where she once used to call home.
“I kind of wish I had pictures of what it looked like, just to compare, but it’s much more spacious, a lot bigger, much nicer,” Piper said. “But it was a good experience. It was a really good experience living here.”
Maldonado Hall lived on campus but not at Southwest Hall, she said.
“It’s really important that you do research before you move in as a freshman,” Maldonado Hall said. “When I was starting college, I wanted to be with other freshmen that were also starting college. That’s not always the only thing that you need to consider. You need to consider what would be the best fit for you. But yes, living on campus just makes you feel a part of the university and just makes you feel like it’s home.”
The Los Angeles native, now calls Stockton her home. She became a teacher and taught for 39 years, Maldonado Hall said.
“This is just a beautiful university,” Maldonado Hall said. “I love being back here.”
To learn more about Southwest Hall, visit pacific.edu.
Record reporter Angelaydet Rocha covers business and community news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at arocha@recordnet.com or on Twitter @AngelaydetRocha. To support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
This article originally appeared on The Record: University of the Pacific celebrates opening of new Southwest Hall
Reporting by Angelaydet Rocha, The Stockton Record / The Record
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By Angelaydet Rocha, The Stockton Record | USA TODAY Network
