“That means that if we have some students with some programmatic early arrivals, Honors College does have an impact program, so some of those students may be residents of Campbell Hall,” Balks said. "Our international students move in on August 16th and 17th, and then most of our other students moving into Campbell Hall will be moving in on the 19th through the 21st."

Campbell Hall, which was built in 1939, is the third building in West Circle Drive to go through key renovations, Balks said. With MSU focused on physical structure and safety updates while keeping the building’s historical aesthetic.

“Because we know our West Circle halls are very popular with students and alumni love to come back and look at them, there were some important upgrades we needed to make,” Balks said.

Among the necessary renovations were accessibility upgrades, as Campbell Hall did not have any elevators in the building. Now, it will have a full elevator on the south side of the hall, an elevator lift from the first floor to the basement level on the north side and an accessible entrance ramp on the southwest side of the building.

“We worked on other safety features including sprinkling and upgraded wiring,” Balks said. “We worked to have some energy efficiencies through all new windows in the hall.”

For bathroom upgrades, Balks said the university looked for best practices across other peer institutions and found that Penn State University and Ohio State University had started doing a different kind of setup.

Living wings will now have community sinks that any resident can use with the inclusion of private bathrooms with individual shower rooms and fully enclosed toilets. Instead of having gender-specific bathrooms, Balks said the bathroom upgrades offer some flexibility in the ways the hall can have different makeups of genders in the building and for residents while also being more supportive when students have guests in their spaces.

MSU, in collaboration with the Residence Education and Housing Services, the MSU Dairy Store and other partners, is working on a ribbon-cutting ceremony to take place on September 12.

"There were many donors that contributed towards the Honors College portion of the Campbell Hall renovations, but we're also bringing some of our construction partners, IPF and other leaders around campus to really just celebrate this exciting renovation and reopening,” Balks said.

In addition to the ribbon cutting ceremony, Balks said there will be other activities planned for both community members and the Honors College, with MSU’s residence education team working with the college on other welcome events taking place in both Campbell Hall and West Circle.

Balks said the building’s renovation was a $37 million project, with around $3 million dollars of funding contributed through the Honors College and the remaining funds through MSU’s Division of Residential and Hospitality Services.

“It's an important renovation, it's an important project for us to continue to support student success,” Balks said. “We're really excited about the spaces that we're collectively building.”

Other inclusions stemming from the renovation include improved student spaces for gathering and community building, a seminar room and office spaces to serve the Honors College. The hall will also have more centralized services available to the West Circle portion of North Neighborhood in Campbell Hall including a mail center, package processing location and package center.