NOTEWORTHY Purchase of 1609 Hazel Puts CIM in Charge of Student-Housing Destiny CIM gained a significant asset and accomplished a major goal last spring when it acquired 1609 Hazel, its high-tech student apartment and practiceroom complex. The building, which abuts CIM, had been on lease from its developer since its opening in July 2020. Owning the structure allows CIM to guarantee students the finest housing along with a world-class education. “We have taken charge of our own destiny,” said CIM President and CEO Paul Hogle. “We are grateful to our Trustees and donors for encouraging us to build our own facility and enabling us to purchase it.” The impact of 1609 Hazel on student life is difficult to overestimate. The still-new complex is capable of housing 240 students in 64 deluxe, secure and fully furnished suites, each complete with two bathrooms, wireless internet, air conditioning, full kitchens and laundry machines.
CIM has acquired 1609 Hazel, its high-tech student residence and practice complex. (Photo by Robert Muller)
And those are just the apartments. In addition to residences, 1609 Hazel contains 19 individual and three state-of-the-art chamber music modular practice rooms and recording studios, all of which are available to students around the clock. Also within the building are lounges, an exercise studio and a classroom. Although it’s only two years old, 1609 Hazel already has demonstrated its worth, allowing CIM to safely reinstate in-person learning much earlier than other major conservatories during the COVID-19 pandemic. Said former Board Chair Richard Hipple: “This is a large part of our critical mission to create the best environment to nurture and grow the next leaders in the world of classical music.”
CIM Draws Closer to CWRU With Renewed Focus on Joint Music Program Physically, CIM and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) can’t get any closer. Academically, however, there’s room to tighten, and that’s just what’s happening this fall through a renewed focus at CIM on the Joint Music Program (JMP). Under the newly revitalized arrangement, CWRU students who take classes or lessons at CIM are being integrated more deeply into life at CIM in general. They’re being welcomed and included in conservatory functions in a way that actively blurs the line between student bodies. “We don’t want the JMP students to be off to the side somewhere,” said Sean Schulze, CIM’s new associate dean for academic partnerships. “We want them to be squarely under the banner of CIM. There’s a desire to have greater alignment.” The JMP itself is nothing new. Under its aegis, students have been pursuing extra-curricular passions, crossing back and forth between university and conservatory, since 1968. Today, all CIM students are JMP students, and hundreds of students at CWRU come to CIM for private lessons, music theory and eurhythmics. The difference now is a desire to strengthen and better promote the relationship, to make CWRU students feel more involved at CIM and attract more students to CIM in general by highlighting the school’s kinship to a major university. “What we have here is really a gem,” said Hallie Moore, associate dean for student academic affairs at CIM. “The goal now is to foster more cooperation and connection, to create a better sense of community.”
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