West Liberty University Highlands Center Is Receiving a Refresh | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo by Joselyn King – Phil Carl, manager of the West Liberty University Highlands Center, shows a classroom there that soon will be a site for behavioral health and speech clinics.

TRIADELPHIA — A sign at the door to West Liberty University Highlands Center office asks visitors to ignore any chaos they see, as WLU has started efforts to refocus the purpose and use of the facility at The Highlands.

Phil Carl, the new manager at The Highlands Center, said he and WLU officials have been discussing recently just what mission The Highlands Center should serve.

“Should it be just a generic classroom-based facility, or is there more we can do?” he asked.

Carl said it is obvious WLU’s mission is education.

“Our primary goal is to provide an affordable, quality education for students. But we’re also here within a shopping plaza at The Highlands,” he explained.

“It’s part of our responsibility to be good community partners.

“We need to be as outwardly facing as possible and give the community an opportunity to interface with West Liberty (University). That’s something that may not have been taken advantage of in the past.”

WLU will partner with the Ohio County Development Authority to host a regional science fair on Feb. 12 at The Highlands Center. The event will utilize not just the county-owned banquet hall in the facility, but also the WLU classrooms there.

As many as 200 students are expected to attend, according to Carl.

The office lobby is presently filled with stacked desk chairs that previously were in classrooms, but these will be removed before the event, he said.

As many as five classrooms have been cleared out as repurposing work at The Highlands Center begins.

One room will become the home to a satellite television studio for WLU’s Topper Station. A green screen, camera equipment and lighting already have been placed in the space.

There are plans to turn the largest of the classrooms — a double-sized classroom considered as two classrooms — into a certified testing area.

The space already is used by WLU educators for in-class testing, as well by some outside groups and organizations in the area with a need for a third party to administer their formal exams.

The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), the Medical College Admission Test and the ACT are among testing already taking place there. And changes to the testing room will permit it to be used more, Carl explained.

Cameras will need to be installed to discourage cheating, he said. And lockers will have to be installed so those being tested will have a place to stash their personal items, such as purses and cell phones, that can’t be with them during an exam.

In addition, professional testing monitors will have to be hired, according to Carl.

Another classroom will serve as a “Zoom room” where students can gather for distance learning classes. Plans call for it to be equipped with monitors and seating.

The last space, meanwhile, will become an additional home for WLU speech and behavioral health clinics. The clinics opened last year on the fourth floor of the Campbell Hall of Health Sciences on the main campus.

Carl said there is no timeline for the repurposing work in the classrooms to be complete.

The remaining four classrooms in the building won’t be touched and will continue to be used as classrooms, he added. Masters classes in education, business and science take place in the building on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

Changes at the Highlands Center started with Carl’s hiring in November. He previously was employed at his family’s business, Warwood Tool.

“There are a lot of really smart people (at WLU) who are really busy who have a lot of great ideas, and those great ideas tend to get stuck with those very busy people because they don’t have time,” he said. “There was no coordination. The question is how do we put all these ideas into a melting pot and into a motion forward?”

Carl said his first order of business was to sit down with WLU’s deans and hear their ideas for the building.

“A lot of the ideas we are moving forward with now came from that collaboration,” Carl said. “There is stuff we can run with now.”