Additional Accommodation

Additional

By Tony McMeel, Deputy Principal

accommodation

for Marcus Oldham

One of the exciting developments happening at Marcus Oldham is the construction of a new accommodation wing comprising 30 additional bedrooms. The College is grateful to the Victorian State Government for providing $2.5M in funding under the Agricultural College Modernisation Program. The funding has allowed the College to proceed with the build earlier and with more certainty than would normally have been possible. Due to good planning by the College the early stages of design work and the planning process had been completed, making the project “shovel ready” and Marcus Oldham eligible for some state government funding for the first time. Demand for bedrooms is high because demand for student places at Marcus continues to be strong. Over recent years, there have been many students required to live in off-campus accommodation as there have been insufficient beds on campus. The College has been renting a number of houses in the area in order to assist.

At the end of 2019, when the College introduced a third trimester into each academic year it allowed the Agriculture (Farm Management) and Agribusiness degrees to be finished in two years of on campus study. That decision to change course delivery was shaped by feedback from past students, who were unable to finish their degree on campus, and has been of great benefit.

The additional 30 bedrooms will make a total of 153 rooms which will be close to providing a room for everyone who wants to stay on campus.

The new residential wing will be a two-storey building on the land directly west of the Ivo Dean dining facility and to the south of the Law-Smith wing. The building is designed to allow each student a comfortable room, slightly larger than the rooms in the Law Smith wing. Each room will have ample storage, a wardrobe, a desk, and a window seat and be fitted out with network connections and air-conditioning. Each section of the wing, (four sections in total), will have shared bathroom facilities, and the wing will also provide upstairs and lower floor common spaces with a laundry on the lower level. The design phase was assisted and influenced by students who provided input into what they thought the rooms should be like at Marcus Oldham.

Completion is hoped for the end of March 2022.