Southern University Law Center students will find a bigger and better Aguinaldo A. Lenoir Hall next spring, after a $4.1 million expansion project is completed.
The expansion includes the addition of three new classrooms, four seminar rooms, a faculty lounge, lobby, a second elevator and four additional restrooms.
Although completion is not expected until February or March, significant changes have recently been made to the current law school building with five lecture classrooms being completely redone and now in use.
The updated rooms now feature plasma TV screens, computer plug-in ports, and better seating, which offers more legroom and comfort.
Lenoir Hall is now in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, as each remodeled room now features special seating for handicap students on every row.
There are plans to renovate more rooms. Chancellor Freddie Pitcher Jr. said a new moot courtroom with theatre-style seating is expected to be completed by October.
The project has been on the drawing board since 1998 and according to Pitcher, originally encompassed an auditorium capable of seating 250-300 people.
Pitcher said when he stepped in as chancellor in 2003, he resumed work on the project, deciding to scrap plans for an auditorium in favor of adding more classrooms.
“The need for classrooms was overwhelming,” Pitcher said before stressing that Lenoir Hall has a “growing and expanding law school.”
Vice Chancellor Russell L. Jones is in agreement and admits to pushed classroom space.
“This is really going to help us,” said Jones.
To help accommodate all 528 law students, two recently refurbished rooms, as well as a couple of the classrooms being constructed, contain a removable wall that allows them to collectively form one large room.
Meghan Beal, a 3rd yr law student, said the add-ons were “a much-needed upgrade” to the law school, which Beal feels was previously lacking.
The add-on plans to the law center come to form some ten years since they were first conceived.
Pitcher described it as a “slow process,” mentioning that the death of the original architect pushed construction back by a year.
Added to the list of plagues, the chancellor stated, was Hurricane Katrina, which not only delayed the renovation, but caused costs to jump from $2.3 million to $4.1 million.
“I’m quite excited,” Pitcher described his thoughts on finally seeing progress on the project.
With the help of the expansion, the chancellor said he hopes to show that the law school has “all the bells and whistles that everyone else has.”
Southern University Law Center was recently ranked by the National Jurist magazine as number 42 out of the top 50 law schools that offer students the most clinical opportunities, or hands-on law training.
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