SUNY Oswego to reconnect School of Education departments in renovated Wilber Hall

OSWEGO, N.Y. — SUNY Oswego says the departments in its School of Education will be operating “under one contiguous roof for the first time in about 50 years” as the school plans to open its renovated Wilber Hall “in stages” this fall.

Wilbur Hall is connected to the college’s Park Hall where portions of its School of Education also operate.

“We’re thrilled to be doing that,” SUNY Oswego President Deborah Stanley said in a news release issued Wednesday. “It is a state-of-the-art home for teacher training throughout the School of Education, and will serve our partners, too, in extraordinary ways in the future.”

Stanley’s remarks were part of the school’s annual opening-day breakfast on Aug. 27, the first day of classes for the fall 2018 semester.

PAC Associates of Oswego, Inc. handled the $13.5 million renovation project at Wilber Hall’s three-story tower, which originally opened in 1964. The facility “comes back online this fall” as faculty and staff reoccupy it in stages, from the top floor down, Mitch Fields, associate vice president for facilities services, said in the school’s news release.

The college will schedule classes in Wilber’s new instructional and lab spaces beginning in the spring 2019 semester.

“It is so exciting that all departments will be together, within a single collaborative complex that will create a signature home for the School of Education,” Pamela Michel, the school’s dean, said in the Oswego news release. “These new, state-of-the-art classrooms will provide opportunities for students to witness and experience how flexible, intentional teaching structures and technological resources can maximize student engagement and learning in collaborative contexts.”

It’s not the first project that’s targeted SUNY Oswego’s Wilber Hall.

Crews previously renovated Wilber’s one-story addition for technology-education laboratories, which opened during the 2012-2013 academic year.

Then, in 2014, SUNY Oswego opened a renovated Park Hall and a new atrium to connect Park with Wilber, a project that represented “the new main entrance and face of the school.”

Department locations

The counseling and psychological-services department will move from Mahar Hall later this month to new third-floor offices in Wilber Hall.

The second and first floors will house faculty of the School of Education’s largest department, curriculum and instruction.

At the same time, the Dean’s office and the school’s other four departments will remain headquartered in Park Hall. Those departments include technology education; career and technical-educator preparation; educational administration; and health promotion and wellness.

Wilber’s lower level will house CARE (Credit Accrual and Recovery for Everyone), an Oswego County CiTi BOCES alternative-learning program for high school students.

CiTi, which is located in Mexico, is short for Center for Instruction, Technology & Innovation, according to its website.

Founded in partnership with SUNY Oswego, CARE will continue to move nontraditional learners toward high school graduation. The lower level will also include an instructional lab for health promotion and wellness, with equipment to “promote” teaching, learning and research in exercise and nutrition.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com