Details on Potential New Residence Hall Still Unclear

A new residence hall has been on Frostburg State University’s agenda for several years now, but information about the hall’s construction is still unclear.

Sean McNally, Associate Director of Residence Life, tried to give some information about the possibility of a new residence hall.

“The dorm is in the extremely early stages of development, and as a result, there is very little information that can be given about the dorm at this time,” McNally said.

While there have certainly been many rumors that the construction behind Cambridge Hall is the place where the new dormitory will be located, McNally was able to clarify that the location of the new dormitory has not been decided yet. The development behind Cambridge Hall will be a stormwater management pond which is being constructed by the Allegany County government.

“The new dorm’s location has not been decided yet,” said McNally. “We do not even own most of the land behind Cambridge Hall.”

When McNally was asked about a focus group that was made in order to give resident life a better understanding on what students wanted in a new dormitory, he was not afraid to admit that there was very little information that he could give about the study. According to McNally, “the focus group’s data has not been completely compiled yet, but we do know that upperclassman and underclassman were tested and they were shown four different layouts that could all potentially end up being in the new dorm.” However, McNally was able to state that the dorm layouts are similar to Edgewood, Fredrick,Westminster, and Cambridge.

Although McNally was unable to give a general date on when the residence hall might be finished, he was able to give some insight on how long the process took when he was a college student. “When I was in college there was a new dorm being created and that took several years,” said McNally. “I am not saying that the dorm in Frostburg might take that long, because again, it is still so early, but I think that students will just need to wait and see what happens.”