Tuttleman Counseling Services and Student Health Services will relocate from 1810 Liacouras Walk to renovated facilities in 1700 N. Broad St., displacing the Athletics department.
Every departmental relocation must have approval from the Board of Trustees, and Tuttleman’s move will be decided during the Board’s March 14 meeting.
If the Board approves the move, Tuttleman will relocate in August and SHS will move by January 2018.
The move would give Tuttleman a nearly 50 percent increase in office space, from 8,900 square feet to 15,000, as a result of its move to the second floor of 1700 N. Broad St., said Dozie Ibeh, the associate vice president of Temple’s Project Delivery Group.
Money for the relocations of Tuttleman and SHS will come from Student Health Services carryover, the CFO’s office, the planning and development fund, and contributions from the Fox School of Business, Ibeh said. Counseling services also made a $250 thousand contribution, he added.
John DiMino, director of Tuttleman Counseling Services, said Tuttleman has the funding to hire three new full-time staff positions. There will be a slight increase in the amount of available walk-in appointments available after Tuttleman’s move, which is targeted for the beginning of August, he added.
“All our new trainees come in in mid-August and we do orientation, so we’re hoping they actually meet that deadline,” DiMino said.
“I wish we were gaining that much [space],” said Mark Denys, the senior administrator of Student Health Services. “We are gaining a little bit, though.”
Student Health Services will move to the fourth floor of 1700 N. Broad St., which is currently occupied by the Athletics department. Athletics will move to the Student Health and Wellness Center, which is being built at 15th Street and Montgomery Avenue and is set to open in Fall 2017.
The fourth floor will have to undergo renovations before Student Health Services can relocate, Denys said.
“All the exam rooms need different [wiring] and we need to make sure they’re as private as they can be with soundproof walls,” he said.
For the duration of the construction of the fourth floor, SHS will remain in its current facilities in 1810 Liacouras Walk.
Student Financial Services and International Student and Scholar Services, which currently occupy the second floor of 1700 N. Broad, will move to the ground floor of Carnell and Conwell halls and a leased space in the Leon Sullivan building, at Broad and Master streets, respectively.
“We’re going to have a more functional and efficient waiting room that’s hopefully a little bigger and a little more comfortable,” Denys said. “Our clinical space is going to be laid out a little differently.”
The nursing exam rooms will be in one area while the doctors and nurse practitioners will be adjacent in a separate area, he added.
“Right now, the nurses are seeing the patients all over the place so we’re going to be able to consolidate that, so we’re not having to move people around so many places,” he said.
The new SHS building will also gain two new exam rooms, upping the total to 21.
“Personally, I know that SHS has a lot of students every day and the wait times are very long for walk-ins, even for emergencies like mine was,” said Melanie Snier, a freshman chemistry major. Snier went to SHS for an eye infection that resulted in a trip to a hospital in Center City. She said medication SHS provided was ineffective and SHS didn’t have the equipment to perform the needed tests.
“[A space increase] would be great,” she added. “I assume that could possibly allow them to accommodate more students at a time.”
Tuttleman and SHS’ relocation is part of a larger initiative to find new spaces for every office currently housed in 1810 Liacouras Walk, Ibeh said.
Diana Breslin-Knudsen, a senior vice dean in the Fox School of Business, said in July 2016 that 1810 Liacouras Walk would be renovated for Fox’s Centennial Celebration in Fall 2018.
As part of the initiative, the advising offices for the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Technology have both been moved to new offices in Paley Library.
Students responded favorably to the change of location.
“I went to a walk-in appointment [at SHS] back in November and I was seen in like an hour or an hour and a half,” said Camille Nahas, a freshman political science major. “If they need to move to get more office space then that’s a good thing. I don’t see any downside to that.”
Alex Guida, the president of Active Minds, a student organization that aims to remove stigmas about mental illness and mental health, said he is glad that Tuttleman is getting more space.
“The main thing is … Tuttleman is a huge source of collaboration,” he said. “In the past, they were too busy and didn’t have enough space to collaborate.”
“People don’t realize that they can get help here,” he added. “They’re stressed from all these factors … and they keep going and they hold it all in. People need to know [Tuttleman] is there and there’s no shame in going.”
Amanda Lien can be reached at amanda.lien@temple.edu or on Twitter @amandajlien.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated where Student Financial Services will relocate. It will return to the ground floor of Carnell and Conwell halls in May.
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