CAMPUS MASTER PLAN A Focus on Academic Spaces

By Lisa Tedrick Prejean

On a recent spring day, hammers and saws could be heard echoing through the Boys’ Garden and across the quad as students in the Maker’s Lab intensive class put finishing touches on sheds they were building for a local Habitat for Humanity organization.

The project was designed to help students work as a team and give back to the community. Intensives allow students to immerse themselves in a single topic as a way to close out the spring term and the academic year.

“The students in this class learn many life skills, including using tools correctly and safely and practicing construction techniques,” said science faculty member Franklin Bell, who teamtaught the course with mathematics faculty member Andy Brown. “These are lessons they will take throughout their lives. Not to mention that these students will have a great introduction to the Maker’s Lab space if they choose that for their Springboard [senior capstone] class next year.”

The students’ work, which required math and engineering skills, had temporarily taken over a concrete slab outside of–and some of the lower classrooms within–the Burgin Center for the Arts. Students carefully worked around each other, making the most of their available workspace, including a former art classroom and the hallway leading outside.

Finding space for expanding programs is challenging, said Associate Head of School for School Life Julie Maurer ’90, P ’18, ’20, ’22, ’23, noting that the lower level of Burgin became home for Maker’s Lab because space wasn’t available elsewhere on campus.

A shoehorn approach to finding places for programs is less than ideal, and there are other similar existing situations and potential future challenges to consider.

“When we looked at the campus, we kept circling back to a focus on our academic spaces,” Maurer said, noting that arts and athletics have both been enhanced in recent years. “We haven’t focused attention on our academic spaces in quite some time.”

Because environment influences learning, it’s time to pay attention. Earlier this year, Mercersburg’s Board of Regents approved a campus master plan to address four areas of need that will preserve the school’s history, ensure present-day educational success, and allow for future sustainability. Campus master plans typically are completed within 15-20 years, and the school expects to stay within that timeline as it begins to implement the four ambitions: Transform the academic experience.

• Refresh the residential life experience.

• Enhance the campus life experience. Support a measured approach to existing facilities and environmental stewardship.

Head of School Quentin McDowell P ’25, ’27 compares a campus master plan to a computer’s operating system. Ideal performance requires consistent upgrades.

“This is just campus master plan iteration X,” McDowell said. “We take what was the original design, and we continue to enhance it, to evolve it, but it’s all based on the same fundamental principles.”

While each part of the campus master plan has value, the school’s leadership team has identified updating academic spaces as a priority.

“To me, that’s called 1A, that’s really getting at our academic spaces and making sure that we’re creating the kinds of environments where students are going to thrive, that are optimal for learning and for the programming of Mercersburg,” McDowell said.

Today’s classrooms need to be light, open, and adaptable to different types of activities.

“While our teachers have been creative in how they set up their spaces–using modular furniture, for example–we need to invest in flexible spaces beyond just the furniture,” Maurer said. “We are

Intensive Origin Stems from Senior Project

The Maker’s Lab intensive grew out of a senior project from last year where two students built a shed for a family that had just moved into a new Habitat for Humanity house in nearby Chambersburg, PA. That project, a “She Shed,” was constructed by Nicole Treml ’22 and Maddie Koutavas ’22.

“One thing that was really important to us was that this shed was built and designed by Nicole and myself. We learned a lot—including how to frame and side a shed. We also learned how to use trigonometry to calculate the perfect angle for our rafters,” Koutavas said.

The students wanted to make this their senior capstone project following a “How Habitat Works” presentation to the student body. The design, materials list, and construction plan were determined by Treml and Koutavas under the guidance of their instructors.

“These skills are irreplaceable, and I will use them throughout my life, especially in my college career in my endeavors to become an engineer,” Treml said.

– Originally published in the Franklin County Free Press. Reprinted with permission.

doing a lot more collaborative teaching, and we need flexibility.”

Taking the step from realizing the need to providing for it occurs through campus space analyses:

Geography: Where things are located.

• Flow of traffic: Time in between classes and the flow of the day.

• Conditions of buildings: What needs to be remodeled or redone? What needs to be new? What doesn’t exist?

“We have programs now that didn’t exist 20 years ago: Maker’s and robotics labs are now standard practice, but we had to find existing spaces and make use of those, as opposed to creating spaces that are optimal for a world which now focuses more on engineering and production and in the creative innovation spaces,” McDowell said. “There are so many things that go into this, and it’s part of why we have partnered with an external firm.”

Direction and Framework

In developing recommendations for Mercersburg, The Blanchard Group, professional campus planners based in Richmond, VA, studied the history of the school in order to understand founding Headmaster William Mann Irvine’s vision for the campus and its evolution since 1893. The Blanchard Group combined that background with present and future needs, and coupled those with a knowledge of what is working on other independent school and college campuses.

An enduring campus master plan needs direction and framework, said architect Jeff Blanchard, principal at The Blanchard Group.

“The school’s primary academic buildings–Irvine Hall, Lenfest Hall, and Rutledge Hall–have not been updated in many years,” Blanchard said. “The school’s top priority is to create new spaces for science, math, Maker’s Lab, and robotics to meet the needs of 21st-century programs and students. This will free up space in Irvine Hall, allowing for a better balance in the academic program. Academic programs from Rutledge Hall also will be relocated. In addition, the ambition includes reimagining the library space to provide more academic support activities.”

A new math and science facility, located north of Irvine Hall, will create space–either in the new building or elsewhere on campus–for Maker’s Lab, robotics, and future STEM programs.

The new building will allow for improvements to existing academic facilities, said Mercersburg’s Director of Facilities Brian Nordyke P ’14, who noted that this will create more functional and flexible spaces.

Ideally, small or large groups could meet, more than one teacher could be working with a group, students could be at a desk, or in pods, with writable surfaces–and in updated laboratories, Maurer said, noting that the preliminary plan includes exterior space for students to work on projects.

“In the center of campus, that becomes a visible space, where kids can be outside working on projects, and that promotes interest,” Maurer said. “Right now, it’s kind of hidden, and instead you could have that be part of our central campus.”

While the other facets of the campus master plan are important, there has to be a starting point, and, for the present time, that focus is academics.

“Mercersburg has done a remarkable job at investing in our facilities,” McDowell said, noting that each part of the plan will be explored as resources allow. “It’s hard because all things are important, but if everything’s important, nothing will ever get done.”