At the start of the summer of 2005, the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences gave the Department access to two new rooms in Manly Hall, which the Department renovated, in preparation for the beginning of the Fall semester. Manly 315 (directly above the main office) now houses secure storage as well as a workroom to be used by faculty and student workers; Manly 210--in between Prof. Murphy's and Prof. McCutcheon's offices--is the Department's new seminar room. When classes begin in August, it will be stocked with new multi-media resources and all upper-level classes will be held in it.

Believe it or not, summers around the Department are busier than the Fall and Spring semesters....

Never send a workman to do what an REL summer student worker can tackle with a hacksaw, a pry bar, and a colorful pirate sash! Here, REL graduate, Blount Junior Fellow, and MA student in French Lit, Kim Davis--wearing her steel-toed flip-flops--prepares to replace the roof on Manly Hall. While the camera clicked away, the noted local photographer, Christine Scott, was overhead shouting, "Work with me, baby, work with me..."

After Manly 210 was painted and the old chalk boards replaced with new white marker boards, new window blinds were installed, the old floor tiles were removed, and, pictured above, new tiles were installed.

On July 20, 2005, new seminar tables and chairs were delivered and the collection of framed "Religion in Culture" lecture series flyers were brought in to go up on the walls. Next step: the installation of multi-media equipment.

Content in our new seminar room after another demanding day working in the Department: REL graduate Christine Scott--who, as of the Fall 2005 semester, begins her MA in Religious Studies at Georgia State. Note the sign in the background, in case someone wanders looking for an English Composition course.

On the third floor of Manly Hall, directly above the main office, is the Department's new work room. (You should have seen what it looked like before Betty, Kim, Christine, and Russell cleaned it up and the painters gave it a long overdue facelift!). Although not intended for general use by our students, it will come in handy for faculty and Department projects and will certainly be used by the student workers that the Department hires every year.

Also, secure glass doors were designed for the Department's reference library, to house our collection of video and DVD resources. Here, Betty Dickey (to the left, wearing her "Go Vols!" orange shirt) inspects the installation, which was completed on July 7, 2005.

Thanks to Betty, Kim, and Christine for keeping track of all this, to Dean Olin for granting our oft-repeated wishes for more space, and to all of the workers for helping to make it happen so quickly (despite the seven coats of red paint it took to do the wall in Manly 210).