Rumors are abundant regarding Tarleton State University’s seemingly endless construction projects. Where will we park? Do we really need all of this? Who is paying for it?

Dr. Mike Leese, Executive Director of Student Life Development, sat down with JTAC News for an exclusive look at what students can expect to see in regards to residence hall development in the next two years, including an update on the hall currently being constructed behind Legends and Legacy halls.

“The new hall that’s being built now will be called Integrity Hall,” said Leese. “The hall that is currently Traditions will become the Honors Hall. We’d like to maintain the name ‘Traditions’ however, so the hall that will be built east of the football stadium will be called Traditions.”

The plans for Traditions, a new hall that will be built on what is currently a parking lot beside the Rec Center, have raised many eyebrows among the student body and even among the staff, who fear that removing parking spaces is the last thing Tarleton should be doing. Leese, however, emphasized that any parking lost through construction will be replaced, possibly even before construction begins.

“There is not going to be any loss of parking,” Leese said. “We’re adding parking whenever we take it away. We keep building on parking lots, which is not always a good thing, but because we’re so landlocked, we have to do that.”

Leese said these changes are necessary as the campus continues to grow. 

“With Heritage, Integrity, the Honors Hall addition and the new Traditions, we’re adding about 2200 new beds,” Leese said.

According to Leese, Balfour Beatty, with whom Tarleton has an existing relationship after the construction of Heritage Hall last year, will also build these new residence halls. Funding, he said, comes from bond sales that the university will pay off over time using money that students pay to live there. Tarleton’s two-year RL&L requirement for freshmen and sophomores ensures that the newly constructed residence halls will be filled.

The current Traditions Hall will be closed at the end of this semester for renovations, including the construction of two elevators for the four-story building. Bender and Ferguson Halls will be demolished within the next two years as well, and Moody and Gough Halls will no longer be utilized as housing.

“We need to get out of the business of leasing off-campus,” Leese added. “What’s happening really is that we are losing the cheapest housing on campus in terms of Bender, Ferguson, Moody and Gough, but a lot of students have been living in those leased apartments off campus that are more expensive, and we need to get them out of that.”

Tarleton is known for its affordability and accessibility for students of all economic and intellectual backgrounds, and Leese addressed concerns that as expensive new residence halls replace cheaper housing, the university will no longer be able to open its doors to students who cannot afford it.

“The plan is to renovate [Hunewell and Hunewell Annex] and that will be the cheapest resident hall on campus,” Leese said. “There is concern with that. We hope that financial aid will follow suit with the increased costs in terms of making that accessible for students who need it.”

Leese spoke openly about Tarleton’s increased admission requirements that have been implemented thanks to a growing number of applicants each semester.

“Tarleton [is raising] its admission standards,” Leese explained. “There are something like 350 students here this fall that wouldn’t be eligible to be here next fall. Some people believe Tarleton has always been this open-door thing, where anyone who wants to come to college should be able to, but when we do that, our retention rate [the percentage of a school’s first-time, first-year undergraduate students who continue at that school the next year] plummets.”

“The fact of the matter is,” Leese said, “there are students who need to be in a community college first because they’re really not ready for a four-year university.”

Leese concluded with the reassurance that every change being made to the university will be for the benefit of the students.

“Tarleton has simply gotten too big,” Leese said. “Changes have to be made to accommodate that, and at the end of the day it’s still about the students and what they need.”