Primed for Success

A prime piece of the University of Arizona campus was for years occupied by two functional but aging libraries, a historic gymnasium used as temporary office space and a tutoring center, and a long-abandoned swimming pool that once contained a satellite dish.

Today, this nine-acre site in the heart of campus is home to the Student Success District — three renovated facilities and one new building that offer cutting-edge creative spaces and innovative new learning experiences while honoring the university’s history.

An ambitious collaboration between the university’s library system and several other divisions, the Student Success District brings together in one central space a wide range of existing and new services designed to help students achieve while they’re at Arizona and succeed long after they’ve graduated. 

After three years of construction and renovation, the university completed the Student Success District in early 2022. The official grand opening took place in April. 

“What’s distinctive about this project is its scale,” said Shan Sutton, dean of University Libraries at Arizona. “You’ll find libraries out there that have a tutoring center or a writing center. But this idea of a single comprehensive design across four buildings as one seamless student experience between libraries and a variety of student success services is unmatched.”

From book warehouse to the cutting edge

Before the university created its Student Success District, it was wrestling with how to do better by a diverse student body of nearly 47,000 students.

Sutton described the university’s 45-year-old Main Library as a popular place for study and research that’s essentially designed to be a five-story book warehouse. But as more Arizona professors embraced project-based and collaborative hands-on learning, the library lacked the space and technology to assist with this classroom trend.

Two buildings away, the five-story Albert B. Weaver Science-Engineering Library still looked much like it did when it opened in the 1960s. The building’s white walls and tile floors, overhead fluorescent lights, bulky wooden furniture and lack of windows made it uninviting.

In between these two library buildings sits Arizona’s iconic Bear Down Gymnasium, built in 1926 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Anyone who has flown in or out of Tucson knows exactly where it is because the words “BEAR DOWN” — the university’s rallying cry — are painted twice on its barrel roof. 

Bear Down Gym was the home court of the Wildcats’ basketball teams until a new campus arena opened in the 1970s. In more recent years, it was used for intramural sports and student recreation before the university covered the gym floor with carpet and made it into temporary office space and a tutoring center.

When the library and student services divisions learned that their counterparts were exploring major renovations, they cooperated on a comprehensive project with the potential to have an even greater impact on student success than if they had acted alone. The result was the Student Success District — a distinctive $81 million project paid for from university funds, student fees and private donations.

“We all were driven by the same motivation,” Sutton said, “which is to improve the student experience at U of A and ensure that all of the resources, services, spaces and expertise that students need to be successful are available and easily accessible."

The Student Success District

Here are a few key numbers for Arizona’s Student Success District: 

• It comprises three renovated buildings and one new facility on nine acres. 
• It has 200,000 square feet of new, renovated or reimagined space.
• And it provides one optimized student success experience.

In the Main Library, two floors of periodicals and reference books were moved upstairs to make room for a high-tech learning space designed to inspire creativity and collaboration. 

The Main Library is now home to CATalyst Studios, a new hands-on creative area open to all students for class assignments or informal use. There’s the Terry Seligman Virtual Reality Studio, a podcasting studio, a data studio with a 20-by-7 foot digital visualization wall and a makerspace with 3D printers, laser and vinyl cutters and other fabrication equipment. Students can borrow laptops, tablets and other equipment from the Rhonda G. Tubbs Tech Toolshed and can visit a new lab full of computers loaded with audio, video and design software. 

In the Weaver Science-Engineering Library, two of its five floors were renovated to provide a variety of spaces for group study to extend the impact of the university’s first specially designed collaborative learning classroom, which can seat up to 270 people. The new tables, chairs and whiteboards in both libraries are on wheels so students can move the furniture as needed. New entrances and covered walkways connect both libraries to Bear Down.

Student services that had been scattered across campus — academic advising, tutoring, academic support, career development and myriad other programs — are now divided among two facilities: the renamed Bear Down Building, and a new four-story LEED Gold-certified building known as the Bartlett Academic Success Center that was completed in late 2020. 

The Bear Down renovation added study spaces, a fitness room with cardio equipment, a campus health office and the university’s first interfaith and serenity spaces. Two elevated breezeways and a ground-floor walkway connect it with the Bartlett Center. The project preserved the exterior of the historic gym as well as a portion of the wooden court and the suspended mezzanine bleachers.

Students demanded more natural light inside buildings, and Arizona gave it to them. The Bartlett Center has floor-to-ceiling windows throughout, and the Weaver Library replaced a windowless brick exterior wall with a two-story glass atrium.

Students also wanted to take advantage of Tucson’s pleasant weather. So the university refurbished the district’s exterior spaces to make it a student gathering place. Now there are comfortable outdoor chairs and tables, native plants and trees, Wi-Fi and electrical outlets to keep phones and laptops charged.

“The students told us, ‘As long as I have power and Wi-Fi and I can pick from shade or sun,’” Sutton said. “’That’s why I’m in Tucson and not cooped up in a building all day.’”

‘Everything they need to be successful’

Here’s how Sutton knew the Student Success District was a winner.

In the early days of a new semester, university libraries are usually empty because students don’t yet have assignments. But Sutton said he was stunned to see during the first week of the fall semester that the newly renovated sections of the library were jam-packed with students.

To measure the project’s long-term success, Sutton said university leaders will closely monitor student traffic coming into all four buildings. The current and next academic years will serve as a baseline, said Sutton, who predicted building use will increase as Arizona students come to learn more about all the services offered within the Student Success District. 

In coming years, university leaders will keep a close eye on student enrollment, retention, graduation and career success as evidence that this effort is paying off.

The Student Success District “is a commitment to every single student at the U of A writ large,” Sutton said. “We want to position every single student for success, and in my view this model has the potential to positively impact all U of A students for generations to come.

“This isn’t just a niche project. This is fundamental to ensuring that students who come to U of A are aware of and have everything they need to be successful.”

This content is sponsored and written by University of Arizona. The editorial staff of Inside Higher Ed had no role in its preparation.