page 2 The Signal August 26, 2015
Campus Town finally opening for business
By Olivia Rizzo Social Media Editor
After a highly anticipated wait, buildings are now up, dorms are occupied by students and retail space is rented out — Campus Town is finally open for business. Since the project was announced, students and faculty alike have been watching the progress of Campus Town build for over a year. For months, the space between Pennington Road and Metzger Drive seemed to be made of nothing but large mounds of dirt as progress on the build was delayed by the harsh winter of 2014. However, once the ground thawed and the snow melted, construction crews hit the ground running with buildings seemingly popping up overnight. Now, the first phase of the $120 million project is complete, and the College community is anxious to see what Campus Town has in store. “I feel like the project is a showcase of the College itself,” said Greg Lentine, director of university campus development for PRC Campus Centers. “It’s almost anticlimactic because every day has been crazy leading up to this. The opening is the end of all our work.” The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Wednesday, Aug. 19, welcoming the campus and Ewing communities to everything Campus Town has to offer. Vendors offered food samples and tours of the new buildings. “We thought it was going to be this small, little event where a few people would show up, and now we have politicians and local businesses calling up saying they are attending,” Lentine said. Some feel the project helps bridge the gap
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Barnes & Noble Bookstore is the first vendor to open in Campus Town. between the College and the larger Ewing community, Ewing Mayor Bert Steinmann said at the ceremony. “It’s about community, and it’s about The College of New Jersey and Ewing Township sharing those experiences handin-hand,” he said. The College’s President R. Barbara Gitenstein shared her sentiments. “It provides students the opportunity to live independently, study and prepare themselves to enter their profession and community as leaders and still be very close to the academic and social life of the campus proper,” Gitenstein said.
With the first phase of the project complete, 446 students will be the first tenants of the newly built Campus Town apartments. Each apartment will house one, two or four students from the College. “I’m most excited about the fact that Campus Town is brand new and I’ll be part of the first group of people to ever stay in those buildings,” junior communications major Michael D’Angelo said. The fully furnished apartments were completely booked three months after it was announced that students could sign up to lease the space, according to Lentine. Along with student apartments, Campus
Town has also rented space to local businesses, many of which are expected to move in within the month. The planned retail shops available are Barnes & Noble, RedBerry Frozen Yogurt, Piccolo Pronto (sister restaurant to nearby Piccolo Trattoria), Spencer Savings Bank, Mexican Mariachi Grill, Panera Bread, Yummy Sushi, Verizon Wireless, Polished Nails salon, California Tanning and Brickwall Tavern & Dining Room. Space has also been leased by the College for a new fitness center and a new space for Campus Police, Lentine said. “I think Campus Town will bring more excitement and easily accessible off-campus activities to the College,” senior English and women and gender studies double major Erin Shannon said. “It will be a greater incentive to stay on slower weekends.” D’Angelo agreed that Campus Town will add something extra to the community. “I think Campus Town will bring a tiny bit of much-needed city (aspect) to TCNJ, regardless of how small that city is,” he said. “Our campus is in the middle of nowhere, so any attraction that gives us something to do is always a plus.” Although most of Campus Town is complete, there will still be construction happening on site as Phase II of the project is being completed. According to Lentine, two additional apartment buildings are underway and will house an additional 166 students. The goal is to rent out more retail space that will sell goods, as the restaurant slots have been filled, according to Lentine. “You look around and see students with their families and local businesses interested in the space,” Lentine said. “It’s like Main Street U.S.A. and that’s really what we want.”
Renovations / Cole / College ‘changed for the better’ Changes to Stud
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called the Decker Social Space, is available for reservations and will serve as a replacement for BSC 202,” Zolin said. “The space will hold 242 people and can be configured in multiple room setups.” Zolin is optimistic that the “Decker Social Space will help alleviate some of the vacuum created by taking BSC 202 off-line.” Other programs held at the College over the summer could not avoid being affected by the reconstruction project in the Student Center. In spite of the obvious roadblock at the center of campus, programs like Freshmen Orientation thrived without access to the Student Center, according to Lindsay Barndt, chair of the TCNJ Orientation Committee. “Fortunately, the closure of the Stud did not significantly impact our freshman orientation program this past July,” Barndt said. “While some families might have been inconvenienced trying to get to the bookstore, and the building itself wasn’t the prettiest to look at, I think the majority would say the longterm pros outweigh the short-term cons.” Barndt looks at the reconstruction efforts as a symbol of exciting changes to come. “It’s like I always tell visiting prospective students: If a school doesn’t have an ugly green construction fence somewhere on campus, that’s actually a bad thing. It means they’re not investing their resources into bettering the facilities, and thus experiences, for its students,” she said. Students and alumni bemoaning the closure of the Rathskeller, and the end of small-scale concerts held at the pub on weekend nights, need not worry that the reconstruction project will interfere. According to CUB’s Facebook page, their new program, CUB Alt, will stage shows at the Lion’s Den this semester. The Student Center is “the hub of campus life,” according to Zolin, and he hopes the reconstruction project, set to be completed in the summer of 2017, will only make that more apparent.
continued from page 1 English alumnus, in a phone interview. “He was plain spoken. He spoke very directly, sometimes colorfully, sometimes coarsely. He did not speak with the smooth polish of an academic, but he was intelligent. We never felt he was a professor talking down at you.” Prior to teaching at the College, Cole obtained his bachelor’s degree from Marshall University, master’s degree from Wake Forest University and Ph.D. from Lehigh University. His wife, Nancy Cole, four children, two stepchildren, six grandchildren and three siblings survive him. Cole, who was born June 2, 1937, in Beaver, W.Va., to mother Naomi Cole and father Carlton Cole, attributed much of his success to his parents’ nurturing upbringing. “I can’t talk about my career without mentioning my parents,” Cole said in a 2006 interview with The Signal. “My father was a coal mine foreman and my mother was a registered nurse in West Virginia. They raised four kids up to believe they could do what they wanted to do. They encouraged me and helped me get through hard times, and for the same purpose, my four kids have been a real inspiration to me and I am terrifically proud of all they have done.” Cole’s pride carried over to his students, as well, according to Chris D’Amico, USA Today NFL editor and former English major at the College in the late ’70s. “He kept tabs on you long after you left. He kept up on everyone,” D’Amico said in a phone interview. “He knew what everyone was doing and it reminded you of the passion he had for
the people he taught. The first time I saw him long after I left (the College), he knew every stop I had made, where I was, and he was proud of what I did. It confirmed my feelings about him.” Cole’s interest in his students ran deeper than merely checking up on them. During his 33 years of teaching, and after he retired, Cole helped over 400 students find jobs post-graduation, according to tcnj.edu. The transition from college to the real world was easier, said Tim Quinn, marketing and communications director for the Princeton Public Library and ’81 English alumni, in a phone interview. Not only did he have plenty of connections in the field, but Cole forced his students to get off campus by covering town meetings, investigating crimes made up by the Hamilton Police specifically for his class and writing for the Trenton Times and Trentonian. “He gave me a recommendation for my first job at The Sentinel-Ledger in Ocean City. He was instrumental in helping me with that job,” Stile said. “I feel like I grew up in a family who venerated newspapers. I had a vague admiration for newspapers, but he clarified that (feeling) for me. He made it seem like an important thing.” The Signal would not exist if Cole had not started teaching journalism classes at the College in the ’70s. Quinn, a formal Signal editor, said he would dread production nights each week because he knew Cole’s famous red ink and criticism would grace every edition of the paper. “He was hard on us and his expectations were high for us, but it came across in a caring, compassionate way,” Quinn said. “He wouldn’t mollycoddle us, but he
wouldn’t dwell on it either. He’d make his point, sometimes with humor, but we would know exactly what we screwed up and work on it for next time.” To say Cole had a profound effect on his students is an understatement, as people like Peggy Ballman, director of issues management communications at Johnson & Johnson and ’80 English alumni, were fundamentally changed by Cole. “When I heard the news of his passing, my first thought was how much I, The Signal team and any of the students he taught — whether they stayed in journalism or not — owed him. You came out of the program and were changed for the better,” Ballman said in a phone interview. “We couldn’t have learned from a better example … he was an amazing teacher and amazing person. I was blessed to know him and be taught by him.” Students of the past make it clear to those of the present and future that they would be lucky to encounter a professor as captivating as Cole was. His dedication and passion held everyone’s attention so much that they never once checked the clock in class, Quinn said. “He infused in us a sense of commitment to social justice. He was teaching us how to use this tool to educate people and make the world a better place. He saw journalism as a vital tool to challenge power. He reflected the new journalism after Watergate,” Stile said. “You couldn’t come away from a meeting with Bob Cole without a huge morale boost. He would talk your ear off and get you so amped up about journalism. It was a special thing to benefit from.” Those who would like to honor Cole’s memory can donate to the College’s Robert C. Cole Journalism Prize.