With one hand in a cast bound with orange and blue tape, Heather White used a mallet to pound a hole into the wall of the Career Resource Center.
On Tuesday, UF students and faculty celebrated the center’s up- coming renovation when White, the center’s director, smashed the hole to break ground on the new space. After 20 years in the same area, construction for the expansion will begin in March, said Ja’Net Glover, senior associate director for Career Services, located on the Reitz Union’s first floor.
About 50 attendees voted on chairs for the new space, which cost about $7 million and will last for nine to 11 months.
“It’s going to be inviting,” Glover said. “We’re going to have the opportunity to use more technology so that there are opportunities for students to study and engage in that way.”
The $7 million project is being funded with Capital Improvement Trust Funds, or student fees set aside for non-academic buildings, she said. Private donors also contributed to the funding.
The construction will add 10,000 square feet to the center above the Wells Fargo in the Reitz. It will have more study rooms, places to meet employers and conference spaces for career fairs, Glover said. In the meantime, the center will operate on the second floor of the Reitz.
The center needed to expand to accommodate the 7,000 interviews held each year, she said.
Erica Eldayrie, 20, a career ambassador with the center, thinks the renovations will help bring new students into the center.
“I think right now one of our battles is people not knowing all our services, until it’s too late and they’re seniors and they’ve already had a job or whatever,” the UF criminology junior said. “So hopefully the renovation will kind of put us on the radar.”
@romyellenbogen
rellenbogen@alligator.org
The Career Resource Center's new facilities will have more study rooms and spaces to meet employers.
