It's moving day for the School of Social Sciences Undergraduate Counseling Office! On August 25, the undergraduate advising crew became the first social sciences office to officially take up residence in the new Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway. Construction of the five story, 83,000 assignable square foot building began in August 2007 and will wrap up this month. The shared building space will continue to fill up through the end of September as departments and programs from the schools of social ecology and social sciences get settled in just in time for the start of the fall 2009 quarter.  
 
Watch the building transformation take place.  
 
Joining the Undergraduate Counseling Office on the social sciences side will be the Academic Resource Center; departments of anthropology and cognitive sciences with space for faculty and graduate student offices as well as classrooms and research labs; and the social sciences dean and two associate dean offices and support staff. The basement of the new building will house fMRI and EEG instruments as well as an anechoic chamber, a sound-booth like room designed to absorb echoes or noises from anything other than the sounds being tested in experimentation. The new addition will help advance the state of the art hearing research being conducted by scholars in the cognitive sciences department. Also occupying the new social sciences space are several large instructional classrooms and computer labs which, says assistant dean Dave Leinen, will not be operating at full capacity due to budget cutbacks for furnishings and computer equipment. He adds, however, that as the funding situation improves in the future, the building will be equipped and operating at its full potential.  
 
"The opening of a new building on campus is really an exciting time," he says. "From the executive vice chancellor's office, to the construction contractor, the Office of Design and Construction, and to the facilities team here in social sciences, a lot of people have pulled together in order to get the new building up and running. I've been with UCI for a long time, and the opening of Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway is one of the most substantive activities I've been involved with, one where we can physically see the results of the hard work we've put in, and that's very rewarding. With the location of undergraduate counseling on the first floor, it provides a readily accessible core of services to our 6,400 undergraduate majors, and we're very proud of that accomplishment as well."  
 
Move-in dates for Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway are as follows:  

 
• Undergraduate Counseling Center (suite 1201) and SSARC (suite 1230) moves to SBSG 1st floor multi-function wing off lobby (currently underway)  
• Anthropology office (suite 3201) and faculty move offices to SBSG office wing 3rd floor suite (planned for mid-September)  
• Cognitive Science office (suite 2201) and faculty move offices to SBSG office wing 2nd floor (planned for mid-September)  
• Dean's Office and both Associate Dean's Offices move to SBSG west wing, suite 5900 (late September or sometime during fall quarter)  
• Initial release of some special purpose laboratory areas on basement floor released for joint-use to Cognitive Science (subject to extramural funding of equipment and during academic year 2009-10)  
• Portions of SSPA, SSPB, and Social Science Tower will be reassigned to the departments of political science, economics, sociology, and Chicano/Latino studies to create focused and/or expanded space opportunities (commencing in winter 2010 and ongoing)  
• Locations and space needs of ORUs and centers will be addressed using returned space as appropriate (commencing in winter 2010 and ongoing)

A formal grand opening ceremony is in the works for fall quarter. More information will be made available via the School of Social Sciences website, www.socsci.uci.edu. Naming opportunities for conference rooms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway are still available. Interested donors should contact Carol Spencer, development director, 949-824-1312 or cspencer@uci.edu.

 

Pictured at right:

Social Sciences Undergraduate Counseling Office packs up their third floor Social Science Tower offices and heads for their new home on the first floor of Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway.