THE NEXT LEVEL

L upton Library, opened at UTC in 1974, is set to begin its next life as a much-needed academic building and with a new name, Lupton Hall.

Renovations are to yield more than 40,000 square feet of space for new classrooms with flexible layouts and furnishings, and equipment to enable distance-learning collaboration with sites across the state or across the world.

Classrooms designated “Technology Enabled Active Learning/ Student-Centered Active Learning Environments” will facilitate multiple group configurations and collaboration. These spaces can double as lecture halls with seating capacity ranging from 42 to more than 200. The building will feature eight conference rooms that also can serve as seminar classrooms with capacity from 10 to 24 seats. Ten additional meeting rooms can be configured to seat from six to 36 people.

The building will have nine student activity organization rooms, and each floor will have space set aside for small, impromptu student gatherings and study. An open concourse area with soft seating can be used for public presentations, movies and concerts for groups of up to 100.

The first floor will house a Women’s Center, Multicultural Center and offices serving international students. On the second floor, a College of Arts and Sciences Student Success Center will be adjacent to expansive space for both the departments of communication and of modern and classical languages, literature, philosophy and religion. The third floor will house the office of the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, along with the departments of English and mathematics.

Located in the center of campus and home to multiple departments that offer general education courses, the renovated Lupton also is expected to begin serving as a central hub with high student traffic.

In 2015, a new campus library opened and planning began for renovations to Lupton, named for Thomas Cartter Lupton and his wife, Margaret Rawlings Lupton.

Legend