Lerner 6 gets long-awaited makeover

And now, something new for Lerner 6: occupants.

Administrative offices are finally moving into the long-empty sixth floor of the Lerner student center, taking Columbia one step closer to establishing a “single, highly visible, easily accessible advising center in a central campus location,” as Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger described it in a May e-mail to students.

After discussion among administrators and student councils, in 2008, council leaders announced that the space would be used to allow for the creation of an advising center. The administrative suite would be moved to the sixth floor, making way for the Center for Student Advising, which oversees students from Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, to be housed on the fourth floor.

The center won’t officially open its doors until fall 2010, but in the meantime, newly appointed Dean of Advising Monique Rinere and Dean of Financial Aid and Educational Financing David Barkowitz have been settling in.

With movement finally underway to create a centralized student advising center, Columbia is overhauling its advising system from the inside out. Newly revamped, the system is now operating for recently matriculated first years—this comes after years of criticism of the student advising system as too hands-off and decentralized.

Though Lerner 6 renovations began this summer, administrators have said that they anticipate the changes and expansion to take several years, and have not issued a full timeline for the project.

Executive Director of Business Services & Student Center Operations Honey Sue Fishman said that while aside for Advising plans they have nothing officially on the coming Lerner construction docket yet, University Services are thinking smaller, especially in comparison to the current full-scale floor renovation.

“We do have a few projects on the table that are relatively small in scale but none that are confirmed,” Fishman said.

Future Lerner projects, she said, will be raised as agenda items in the Lerner Advisory Committee.