From its peculiar smells to its esoteric room layouts, H.L. Griffin Hall is filled with countless quirks that make it a memorable part of University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s campus. While a daily hike to the fifth floor can make for a funny story, the building is clearly at a crossroads. With some luck and funding, the path forward could very well be more than some renovations or repairs, but we could potentially see a whole new H.L. Griffin Hall.
Almost every student who attends UL Lafayette attends class at H.L. Griffin. Whether it’s for a single English class or for fifteen hours a week, but nearly every Ragin’ Cajun is familiar with H.L. Griffin and its many charms.
According to Dr. Clancy Ratliff, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, this semester alone there are 512 classes in H.L. Griffin. Attending these classes are 5,575 students during Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; there are 3,864 students in the building on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Many of those students have taken notice of some issues troubling the building.
When asked what she thought of the building, Lamhyia Carvin, a sophomore in sociology said, “It smells like pee, that’s my first thought when I walked in here just now […] I don’t know what’s happening here but it needs some reworking.”
Kelli Rivet, a sophomore in psychology said, “It’s not that bad, but the stairs do kill me everyday and it’s just horrible[…] I get a lot of people who ask me questions of like where stuff’s at, especially freshmen[…] and you got to do this, this and that to get there.”
With the building being more than 50 years old, it’s not surprising that issues have popped up. Buildings wear down and sure they’re maintained, but a building can eventually reach that point in its lifespan where something drastic needs to be done.
Clancy said, “I think that we are sort of at a fork in the road really. I think we’re at a point where we need to either do a major renovation of Griffin or build a new building for these classes and offices.”
Walking to H.L. Griffin can be a particularly vexing task these days, with having to walk around the construction site of the new 55 million dollar engineering building. In that journey it is natural to wonder why other colleges aren’t getting the renovations and facility improvements they need.
However the university is well aware of the state of UL Lafayette’s facilities including H.L. Griffin, after all it would be very hard to ignore a five story, 50-year-old staple of the campus. Scott Hebert, the director of the Office of Facility Management said, “We want to try to fix that, make it you know, bring in more natural light, make it more airy, more clean, just really something you can be proud of.”
If the target 60 million dollars is raised, the plan is to build a brand new H.L. Griffin, adjacent to the current one on the corner of Lewis and Rex streets. The project has been in the works since before the pandemic which unfortunately delayed the plan and took some momentum. Now it’s back on the agenda with the Office of Facility Management currently in the process of acquiring funds and designing the facility.
If there’s another major setback or the office isn’t able to acquire the necessary funding, H.L. Griffin will likely receive the tender love and care it deserves.
While the exact design of the building has not been nailed down, the hope is to follow the philosophy of the new engineering building and have a collaborative, student-centered approach. Hopefully the building will allow for more mixing between the various liberal arts majors and a space for english, communication, psychology and history majors to come together sounds exhilarating.
Until the building is funded, designed and constructed, it is still going to be a long hike to the fifth floor. Thankfully, Griffin’s elevators are currently unlocked and no longer require special permission or the scan of your cajun card. While students are required to yield to any students or staff with disabilities, both elevators situated on the parking lot side of H.L. Griffin are currently open.
Like any college, the College of Liberal Arts has a place at the university, and it would be nice for that place not to smell and be something that evokes excitement and pride.