Library and Academic Commons

Dear Alumni and Friends of Oxford:

Happy New Year to you, one and all.  Although we have turned the calendar to 2012, our students and faculty will not return for another week.  The campus looks bleak by Oxford standards: most of the trees are bare and the quad is very quiet.  Such stillness, however, belies the intense activity at desks and in offices and meeting rooms. 
We are busy reviewing a record number of applications for next fall and preparing our fourth annual budget proposal of the economic downturn.  Our administration and staff are busy preparing for spring semester, and many of us are also highly focused on a project that is going full tilt: the new Oxford Library.    

The last time I updated you on our plans for the library, almost a year ago, I told you about our “proof of concept” installed in fall 2010.  We renovated the first floor of the library, testing the finishes, space configurations and technologies in the design at that point.  Although we had great hopes for the project, we failed to anticipate just how successful it would be.  Based on student and faculty feedback and the way they have used the newly configured and equipped space, we learned that we can create the library we want without having to raze the current structure.  If we build a ten-thousand-square-foot addition on the front of the current twenty-thousand-square-foot building and extend the “proof of concept” design throughout the expanded structure, we can create a library and academic commons that will serve Oxford well for many decades to come.   

Since the “proof of concept” project was completed, we have been through the next phase of architectural work and the schematic design is now complete.  Over the decade in which the new library has been in planning, we have considered a number of architectural approaches.   At last we have one that nearly everyone who has seen the drawings seems to love.  The exterior design delivers a building with an architectural presence more in keeping with the historic buildings adjacent to it and surrounding it on the quad.  The interior will allow us to comfortably accommodate our increased student enrollment with an aesthetic environment and cutting-edge technology. 

We are soon to move on to the design development phase and the preparation of construction drawings.  We hope to begin construction this coming May, if all goes well with our fundraising, and the new Oxford College Library and Academic Commons would be open for the fall of 2013.  Many of you have heard that we already held a symbolic groundbreaking for the library in mid-December with Fran Elizer, 95, long-time library assistant at Oxford and widow of Marshall Elizer, who served the college for decades in various roles from math professor to business manager.  Oxford College Librarian Kitty McNeill and our Development and Alumni Relations staff came to visit Mrs. Elizer and arranged for her to turn a small sampling of soil from the library grounds, using a miniature silver shovel.  Hugh Tarbutton, Jr., chair of the Board of Counselors’ committee on the library project, and I were honored to be present as well.  We had been told by Mrs. Elizer’s family that she had not long to live, and indeed she died just three days following our ceremony in her assisted living room.  This was a very meaningful moment in the life of the College —Mrs. Elizer representing the traditional spirit and dedication to Oxford while celebrating the change and innovation that will come with our new library. 

I hope that all of you will join us in embracing this vital new development—with your financial support if possible, but certainly with your enthusiasm and interest.  This is one of the most important endeavors on our horizon for 2012, and I look forward to keeping you updated on it and other projects in the coming year.

Thank you for your continuing support of Oxford College.

Sincerely,

Stephen Bowen

Dean of Oxford College and Kenan Professor of Biology