Renovations and development for the Lake Havasu campus are underway, keeping the campus on schedule to open in fall 2012.
The new addition to the University is part of the Colleges@ASU initiative that aims to offer multiple university locations for students.
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs David Young said Thursday that University officials are working on finding housing for students and will be putting in requests for proposals in a week or two.
Young also said hiring of faculty would begin in January.
“We are looking to hire a lot of folks in the Lake Havasu community as well as nationally,” he said.
Senior Vice President and University Planner Richard Stanley said faculty is in the process of being hired.
“No one is actually on board yet since we won’t be actually teaching until next fall,” Stanley said.
Stanley said Lake Havasu professors would not be current University faculty.
“They will not be existing faculty who will be traveling part time to teach there,” he said. “It will be a faculty that will be devoted to teaching in Lake Havasu.”
The Havasu Foundation for Higher Education is the organization in charge of opening the new campus at the site of a former middle school.
HFHE Executive Director Bill Ullery said the faculty ASU is looking to hire is exceptional.
“They’re people with impressive credentials,” Ullery said.
Stanley said while exterior renovations have begun on the building, interior renovations to the building are not expected to begin until December.
“We’re very close to having a final set of plans in place so that the physical work can actually start,” Stanley said. “They have done some work on the grounds of the middle school.”
Stanley said interior renovations including roof repairs, restroom remodeling and installing audiovisual and presentation equipment will be relatively minor. There will be no new buildings added to the campus.
Stanley said the University plans to work out agreements with apartment complexes and motels to convert into potential student housing.
The University began accepting applications for the campus in September. Young said students would be accepted sometime in the spring.
“Things are progressing well,” Young said.
Reach the reporters at newlin.tillotson@asu.edu and kmmandev@asu.edu
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