WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007 | NEWS | WWW.KANSAN.COM THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KANSAS UNION
Business slow during summer
By Ben Smith
bsmith@kansan.com
Now that summer classes have begun, rhythm has returned to the Kansas Memorial Union, although it is a rhythm different from the steady traffic of the fall and spring semesters.
Emily Willis, owner of the Salon Hawk, said that for the first two weeks following the end of classes in May she had to look out the window to make sure that the world hadn't ended.
"The only person I saw was the FedEx guy," Willis said.
With the general student population diminished after spring classes let out, Willis said that business was slower.
"We seem to squeak by in the summer," Willis said. "But business picks up again in August."
Ruth Lichtwardt, a 19-year employee of Oread Books, said though traffic is generally slower in the summer, it is far from dead.
"We'll have large groups of people who come for New Student Orientation," she said. "A lot of people who haven't come through before are trying to learn their way around because they're new."
With books on display that discuss college survival and getting through freshman year, Oread Books caters
to the incoming students.
"In the summer we sell a lot of Lawrence maps and give away a lot of campus maps." Lichtwardt said.
Sales in general are lower, however with the decrease in campus population. Lightward said that business is "more sporadic during the summer with little lulls and bursts."
Rebecca Swearingen, business manager with Union Programs, said that though the summers are slower, that doesn't mean that nothing is going on.
"Full-time employees are just as busy in the summer time as they are in the spring and fall," she said. "We can actually set and focus on one project as opposed to multitasking.
Jon Goering/KANSAN
Justin Skinner, a cashier at the Kansas Memorial Union, waits for customers to come through his line Tuesday morning. Summer classes and new student orientations help business in the summer.
The summer allows that."
With fewer students coming in, Swearingen said it was a good time for the full-time Union employees to
settle in and begin focusing on planning for the upcoming year.
- Edited by Joe Caponio
》RENOVATIONS
Construction of Wescoe offices completed
By Andy Greenhaw editor@kansan.com
The University of Kansas completed its construction of a $3.5 million addition to Wescoe Hall last week.
The University converted and enclosed the southwest side of
Wescoe that faces Budig Hall into two floors of office space, which adds about 24,000 square feet to the inside of the building. Construction began last summer and took nearly a year to complete.
Steve Scannell, assistant director of the design and construction management department, said the addition was made to accommodate 80 to 100 new faculty.
"People are starting to move in now," Scannell said as he helped with elevator inspections last week. "I think move-ins will be done by Monday, June 18, but they may be finished sooner."
Jon Goering/KANSAN
The renovations on Wescoe are almost complete, and faculty began moving in to their new offices this summer. The Spanish and Portuguese department faculty have moved to level 2 1/2.
Most of the Spanish and Portuguese department is moving to the second floor of the newly constructed wing. The third floor will be the new home for most of the history department. The philosophy department will occupy some of the Spanish department's old location on the third floor, and the English administrative offices will use the history department's vacated space on the third floor.
"The new area for the English department will have only one entrance with a receptionist to guide students where they need to go," said James Gunn, a professor in the English department. "The new area should be a lot more efficient and easier to interact with students."
Faculty and staff on the first
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— Edited by Joe Caponio
"Our new offices are much better than what we had," said Clarice Amorim, a student assistant in the Spanish department. "They're at least three times bigger than our old ones."
floor, which includes mostly Spanish graduate teaching assistants, are also moving into the empty offices on the second and third floors in order to clear the area for a $4.8 million project which is focused on the repair of the east side of the building's uneven first-floor that is scheduled to begin