by Chris Hilburn-Trenkle
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work recently completed key infrastructure upgrades to increase its ability to serve more students than ever before.
Soon after arriving at the School of Social Work in August 2022, Facilities Manager Samuel Deal, along with Dean Ramona Denby-Brinson and the School’s Computer Information and Technology Unit (CITU) team, began a years-long process to upgrade key areas of the Tate-Turker-Kuralt Building to serve a growing community of students, faculty and staff.
Opened in 1995, the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building was named after three influential donors, former UNC trustee chairman John A. Tate, Dean Emeritus John Turner and award-winning broadcaster Charles Kuralt. The 75,000-square-foot structure is situated on Pittsboro Street next to other health science buildings, including UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
Deal brought a fresh perspective to the building following nearly 19 years spent in facilities management with UNC School of Nursing. With the help of UNC Facilities Services and third-party vendors, Deal meticulously upgraded classrooms, emergency preparedness guidelines and office spacing. In addition, Deal spearheaded the School’s leasing of an off-campus building to house one of its leading centers, Behavioral Health Springboard.
Meanwhile, the CITU team — including IT Director Phil Kaufman, Computer Support Analyst Vanessa Mitchell, Systems Analyst Jim Griffith, and Technology Support Technician Thaddaeus Edwards — updated audiovisual equipment throughout the building to assist both in-person and remote students, faculty and staff.
“Our programs are growing,” Deal said. “How do we increase our seating capacity, our number of classrooms, but also our office spaces and look at how they’re used? It’s a multi-faceted puzzle. We’re not increasing the footprint of the building, so working with the square footage we have, we need to identify how we’re using the space, the items we have in the space and perhaps change our thinking and how things have always been [laid out in the building].”
Below you can find a list of the notable completed and upcoming updates to the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building.
Completed upgrades/updates
Adapted audiovisual capability in classroom settings: This process involved ensuring that the School’s six large- and medium-sized classrooms offered a uniform and familiar setup for faculty and students. Each room was equipped with two large screens, a wall mounted computer, a wireless keyboard and a mouse. The rooms also received a camera, microphone and speaker system.
Fifth floor lounge turned into multi-purpose space: The CITU team added audiovisual equipment to the lounge for use as both a hybrid classroom and meeting or event space.
Leased additional office space at the Europa Center: Located on Europa Drive in Chapel Hill near I-40, the building houses Behavioral Health Springboard, a fast-growing program in the School that has numerous partnerships across the state and more than 40 full-time staff members. The Europa Center includes a conference room seating 35-40 individuals, with additional conference room space available to members of the School. Each conference room will soon be outfitted with two large screens, a computer, cameras at the front of the room, a microphone and a speaker system.
Replaced tables and chairs with rolling tablet chairs in classrooms: Deal met with four different vendors and consulted with faculty, students and staff to find the optimal rolling tablet chair option for three classrooms at the School. The rolling tablet chairs are accessible, ambidextrous, allow for more individuals to safely occupy a classroom and provide students greater flexibility for collaboration and group work.
Safety updates: Deal installed thumb latches and locks on all classroom doors in the building, as well as emergency preparedness guidelines for faculty in all classrooms. Five security cameras were installed around the building, as were panic/duress buttons in classrooms.
Updated auditorium experience: The School’s auditorium is one of the most frequented rooms in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building, in use three days each week. In addition to holding annual popular events like the Bobby Boyd Leadership Lecture and Harambee, the space is utilized by other departments at Carolina for a dozen events each year.
To improve the viewing and listening experiences for in-person and virtual attendees in the 230-seat hall for the 2024—25 academic year, Deal and the CITU team replaced the projector with a new 16-by-9-foot video wall. Other upgrades included a room control system, an auto tracking camera and upgraded audio, including a deep bass speaker. In early February, the auditorium was upgraded with new microphone and audio systems, as well as a mobile podium.
“To get the video screen made a huge difference for the quality of our hybrid events and our in-person events,” Kaufman said. “This next step [getting microphones and audio up to a better quality] gives us one of the better presentation spaces [on] this side of campus.”
Future plans could involve removing seats — to create more space between rows to comply with American Disability Act regulations — and replacing the style of seats to allow the auditorium to function as a space for group collaboration.
Potential upcoming upgrades
Optimizing space to accommodate growing enrollment: Deal is working to assess various rooms in the building, including office spaces, research spaces and learning spaces, to safely house as many as 60 students in a class. That process could involve updating furnishings in classrooms to allow for greater mobility for students and faculty.
Soft seating meeting spaces: Deal hopes to capitalize on some of the available square footage in the common area spaces by creating modest areas with chairs and tables for smaller study groups and meetings.
Changing current office space: Two first floor office spaces are candidates to be converted into classroom space for the School’s growing student body for academic year 2025—26.
