With fences in place and construction crews on site, the massive $20.9 million renovation of Bennett Hall is fully under way.
The construction project, scheduled to be finished in August 2005, will involve a complete interior and exterior upgrade, including redesigned classroom space, window replacement and the installation of a new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.
The project consists of "modify[ing] the layout in significant parts of the facility," Design and Construction Managing Director Mark Wilson said.
Bennett Hall -- originally home to Penn's College for Women -- is now home to Penn's English Department and English Language program, and the renovations, according to those people who have been at the department longest, have been desperately needed.
English Department Chairman James English said, "We're thrilled. ... We couldn't be happier. I've been in the department for 15 years, and [the University] was talking about the renovation then."
"It's been very difficult to do it -- to get the money and will. Sam [Preston, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences,] was determined and made it happen. ... It's fantastic."
One of the biggest problems to impact Bennett Hall was the level of noise due to the poor insulation of the building's windows and its location at the intersection of 34th and Walnut streets.
"At times, the place is just absolutely unmanageable [in terms of the] decibel level," English said.
The new windows are meant to match the existing design but will afford "better acoustic and insulation quality" for the building, University architect Charlie Newman said.
Interior upgrades will include refinished floors and painting. The rest rooms will also be relocated and completely redone.
According to Wilson, the fourth floor of Bennett Hall, which in recent years has been filled with workstations for English graduate students, will be subdivided to include two new large musical rehearsal rooms, two music equipment central pool classrooms and six smaller practice rooms for the Music Department.
The graduate students will be relocated to the lower floors of the building.
Additionally, the Penniman Library, located on the second floor of Bennett Hall, will be restructured to provide the department with more classroom space.
"The main center part of [the library] will remain two stories, [but] ... we'll put a floor in so [there will] be two one-story-tall seminar rooms on each side. A total of four seminar rooms" will result, Wilson said.
The center stairwell is also set to be updated.
"As part of this renovation, we are reopening the skylight at the top of the stairs, [so] the stairway will be flooded with natural light," Newman said.
Lecterns in certain classrooms will have a flat-panel display design -- similar to, but less elaborate than, those in Huntsman Hall -- that will allow professors to project any type of electronic medium.
According to English, this step is important to teaching, as a result of "the degree that our subject matter of literature is broadening out to include cinema and other media."
The garden and courtyard space outside of Bennett Hall is also going to be redesigned in order to allow more sunlight into the lower level of the building.
While the renovation is taking place, the English Department is being housed in the University City Science Center at 36th and Market streets.
Offices and department personnel were moved out of Bennett Hall at the end of June, at the same time as the Romance Languages Department returned to Williams Hall.
Though the move has made the English Department less centrally located on campus, professors and students intend to accommodate their classes and work around the move.
"We are trying to maintain visibility on campus," English said.
"Whatever inconvenience or difficulty we're suffering by being off campus for the year, it's well worth it," he added.
For the time being, English classes continue to be held throughout campus, as had been the case before the renovations, but due to the classroom space that has been temporarily eliminated in Bennett Hall, the department has resorted to holding classes in lesser-known places, including the seminar rooms of the three high rise apartment buildings.
The Kelly Writers House also provides the English Department with an outlet for classroom and discussion space.
For many students and faculty members, the renovation of Bennett Hall has come to symbolize not only the much-needed improvement of a campus landmark, but also a crucial connection linking Penn's four undergraduate schools.
"The School of Arts and Sciences is a huge and vital operation that is always on a tight budget, so finding room in that budget to do a $20 million renovation is very difficult," English said.
"Symbolically, it's very important for a major university like Penn to have first-rate classroom buildings for the arts and sciences. ... Bennett Hall has a certain prominence to the University and to renovate [it] ... serves the English Department well and serves the University well," English added.
The new Bennett Hall is set to house the English Department and English Language program, in addition to the Film Studies program.
