As the 2025-26 school year closes and faculty prepares for a new year, some departments are undergoing more changes than others. The newly renovated Bachelor Hall will reopen its doors as a new hub for the humanities.
The English, History, Philosophy and Media, Journalism and Film departments will move into new offices and classrooms over the summer while students are off campus.
For one department, this move is a consolidation in some ways more than an upgrade, as many history professors will have diminished space for their collections of books, primary documents and personal works.
One professor, Steven Conn, enjoys the luxury of one of the biggest offices on Upham’s second floor, and the room is adorned with a wall full of bookshelves, a large couch and multiple filing cabinets. His future office in Bachelor Hall will have approximately one eighth of the space for books he currently has and no space for filing cabinets holding years worth of work.
“We got a tour of the new building a month ago, so we all got to see what the size of the offices were, and we all got to see the bookcase space, or lack thereof,” Conn said.
The department currently has a shelf full of books on the second floor of Upham that won’t make the move to Bachelor, free for students to take since the new space is too small for some professors’ collections.
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Conn explained his plan to give most of his books to students and take some home. He even joked about setting fire to some, since there aren’t many available solutions for the plethora of extra books.
While the new space will have provided shelving, it won’t be nearly as much as the current Upham accommodations, mostly lacking the height of the current furniture in the history offices.
“Building code law [states] if you have bookcases that are higher than this, they have to be screwed to the wall,” Conn said. “I think they just didn't want to do that over in the new building. So we have these bookshelves that are legally short enough that they don't have to be permanently attached to the walls, but it means there's a ton of space above them wasted.”
Another professor, Elena Jackson Albarrán, has a significantly smaller office, but the move will still be a downsize, especially considering the shelving issue. Her office holds several shelves full of books and a cabinet of primary resources used for student and research reference.
The move will force her to house some of these materials elsewhere, like her home. She worries having fewer resources in her office will force her to spend time away from her office and she will become less accessible to her students.
“What will happen is we'll take those writing books home, and we'll write from home, so we won’t be on campus,” Albarrán said. “We will have much reduced capacity to use books with students, and so that kind of expertise that we have with students is going to have to [change].”
Both professors mentioned although the upgrades of a new building will be appreciated, Bachelor Hall sits on Western Campus, an area that gets significantly less foot traffic and attention than Upham Hall in the center of academic quad.
The historic building is beloved by students and faculty alike and the decision to move the humanities hub further away from the main part of campus did not go unnoticed by the history professors. Albarrán detailed the shift in logo usage since her arrival at Miami from the previously used Upham Arch lamplight to the current block “M” logo that feels more representative of the sports teams than the liberal arts education provided here.
“Upham is the heart of campus, right? Symbols like mergers and all the photo shoots, but Upham is also the place where we have that lantern in the arch,” Albarrán said. “That lantern used to be the logo of Miami University. That was the symbol of learning enlightenment and it's at the heart of campus and it's the heart of the mission, but that's our logo.”
The new Bachelor Hall location is right across the street from the upcoming arena construction that the humanities professors will likely be able to see and hear from their new offices. While the university anticipates spending $281 million on this new project, some professors feel ignored, especially when entire majors and departments are being cut.
“Real estate tells you a great deal about the priorities of a university ... Most of the humanities and even some of the science departments are located in this central part of campus, and that sends a message,” Conn said. “The message being sent now is, we're going to move all those humanities people off to a corner of campus where the parking is crappy and it's gonna have to live in the shadow of our basketball palace forever.”
College of Arts and Sciences Dean and history professor Reneé Baernstein said the changes in university focus are based on student interests, and the humanities are struggling on a national scale, not just at Miami.
“I think students are voting with their feet and moving away from the humanities, and you see that in our enrollments,” Baernstein said. “What I hope and what we're trying to do in arts and science is to continue to keep the humanities strong and relevant to today's students.”
She highlighted that change is always hard and said the move would benefit the department in the long run. The updated Bachelor Hall opens for classes in the coming fall semester, and a grand opening of the building will be held sometime in September.
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