The head of William Penn University is announcing a major construction and renovation project for the Oskaloosa campus. President Richard Sours says the centerpiece of the five-million dollar effort will be a domed student activities center that’ll be large enough to enclose an area the size of a football field.
Sours says it will contain six-thousand square feet of much-needed office space and it’ll be the new home for graduation ceremonies, all sorts of student activities, intramural athletics, fitness and wellness activities, athletic team practices and perhaps games. Construction on the new activities center will begin very soon with the building due for completion by the end of summer. Sours says the university’s renovation process will include a host of classrooms and dorms.
Sours says a number of William Penn’s academic buildings and residence halls “are in need of some T-L-C” and an immediate planning process will get underway to assess the needs of virtually every building on campus, including the library and student union. Other new buildings are planned as well at the 132-year-old liberal arts institution, including one adjacent to the new student activities center that will include locker rooms and showers, and an industrial technology building with a new focus on video production.
Sours says the goal is raising enrollment by 150 students on the Oskaloosa campus over the next three years. Revenue generated by those new students will be used to go through a prioritized list of needed improvements. The Oskaloosa campus is now home to 710 students, while about one-thousand more students attend William Penn’s other outlets in West Des Moines, Ames and Eddyville.