Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Halls dining room will be closed for renovations during the 2007-2008 school year. The reconstruction of the dining hall will last one year from the end of the 2007 spring semester before reopening in the fall of 2008.

Open since 1963, PAR dining hall has not had any type of remodeling other than furniture.

Some of the new ideas and upgrades that the dining hall will have are a much more open entrance way and a variety of made-to-order food stations. The space allotted for the basement dining hall will be more open and spacious for the amount of students that will be living in PAR by 2008.

Kirsten Ruby, assistant director of Housing for Marketing, said that with this renovation, PAR dining hall would be the newest and improved dining hall on campus.

“This will be the beginning of many improvements on campus within the next 20 years,” she said. “We have many ideas on how to create a more current campus.”

While this construction is taking place, PAR residents will get the luxury of having all day A La Carte, or better known as “late night,” access instead of having to wait until 8 p.m. every night. It will be housed in Penn Station, located on the Saunders/Blaisdell side of PAR, for the entire 2007-2008 school year.

With the closing of PAR’s dining hall, students will have the option of eating at another residence hall. Students can eat at the Six Pack, which hosts their own scheduled meal times and “late night” session, also beginning at 8 p.m. In addition, FAR, located across the street from PAR, will be the primary hall for PAR residents to eat in. Both of FAR’s Trelease and Oglesby dining entrances will be open at all times to provide space for meals.

FAR will also have many new employment positions to accommodate for the expanding number of students eating at the different times of the day. Dianne Horton, service manager for dining services at FAR, said it would be interesting to see what happens.

“It may be a little harder to keep things organized during the week, so we will need more employees,” she said. “But on the weekends it won’t be any different.”

Employment opportunities will be in abundance at FAR and a select few will have the opportunity to acquire jobs at PAR’s A La Carte. Mary Black, service manager, said the employees could transfer their earned salary back to PAR when it reopens.

“Residents who live in PAR and work for the dining service at any dorm can work in PAR’s new dining area without having to start their hourly wage over,” she said. “And people who can’t eat in PAR would then eat conveniently and at their leisure.”