The Administration Building was constructed in 1967. It’s the oldest building belonging to Salt Lake Community College’s Taylorsville-Redwood Campus. The Administration Building does not meet the standards of the Utah Seismic Building Code, which was one of the reasons SLCC decided to replace it with the Instructional and Administration Building (IAB).
Construction of the IAB began over two years ago. The completion is scheduled for mid-August, which means the building will be ready in time for the fall semester.
“The move is going to be great. The new classrooms actually respect the act of educating people,” says Stephen Ruffus, Associate Dean of the English Department.
The IAB will house the faculty and administration for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as the administration offices for SLCC.
The building will feature a writing and publishing center, forty classrooms—two of which will have the capacity of teaching over sixty SLCC students—and an open cultural commons. The IAB is LEED-certified and has a Silver rating.
The writing and publishing center will be located in the open cultural commons. The publishing center will have a book-binder, a paper-cutter, and iMac computers with high-end software, according to Ruffus.
“The idea [of the publication center] is to try and convey the notion that all writing does go into some form of production at some time,” says Ruffus. “It’s important to convey to students that writing is a thing that enters into the world.”
Ruffus has taught at SLCC for twenty-five years. He says he’s excited about the move because the current administration building has outlived its purpose.
The Administration Building is scheduled for demolition in November. The area where the Administration Building once stood will be landscaped in order to give the college a park-like atmosphere, according to Joy Tlou, the Director of Public Relations for SLCC.
