Building provides room to breathe and grow, just in time for music and communication Goodbye to the days of cramped acting spaces and echoey singing rooms. Construction of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Music and Communication began this spring to provide much-needed elbow room for both departments. The current music building dates from the 1950s, as does the Ganus Building. Both have undergone numerous remodelings over the years, but, according to music chairmanDr. Arthur Shearin, renovations are not enough. One current music major agrees. "It is hard to practice because the practice rooms are not sound proof and, sometimes when you are practicing, you get confused because everyone else is singing or playing different songs at the same time," junior Carrie Owen said of the old music building. "Plus, there are not enough practice rooms and classrooms to accommodate everyone at the same time." Space constraints present a similar problem in the communication building. That kind of frustration won't be heard in the halls of the new center. The buildingwill provide a communication disorders clinic, television and radio studios, a Macintosh lab, a digital interactive classroom, areas for theater and forensics and nine formal classrooms and offices for faculty. This 53,000square foot facility will also include a performing arts center between the communication and music wings. "The new building is designed from the floor up to meet the specific needs of the communication and music departments, and there is plenty of room for both departments to grow in the future," Dr. Mike James, Communication Department chair, said. It's just such growth that James anticipates. "The best · feature of the new building is that we are moving out of cramped, old facilities that are Ava Conley interacts with her Spanish class. The foreign language program has grown in recent years, due in part to the growing necessity ofsuch knowledge in various fields. Photo by Aaron Gillihan. unaccessible to the handicapped, and moving into bright, modern, spacious facilities that will allow free movement to everyone," James said. Without the money from the Reynolds foundation, this huge project would have never seen reality. Dr. Shearin called it "a gift from heaven." "Everyone has realized for a long time that we needed new facilities and, while a $1 million dollar renovation would have been a benefit, the Reynolds gift makes it possible to construct a facility that is state-of-the-art, especially in regard to acoustics and sound control, and that is uniquely designed for our program at Harding. "In my judgment, Harding would have been unable to fund such a structure on its own, and thus the Reynolds gift is especially meaningful. This gift will provide us with one of the finest facilities in the state, if not the finest, and it will be a blessing to our work for years to come," Shearin said. - Hallie Bell Music/ Communication 157
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