With the opening of the Otis P. Hawkins Center, connected to Farrior Hall, student athletes have multiple resources condensed in one building.
Nine athletic advisers are housed in the center, along with tutors, study rooms and a nutrition center, said Keith Carodine, the senior associate athletics director. Final renovations will be finished in December, including more rooms for studying, tutoring and Preview as well as offices for four sports psychologists and mental-health professionals.
It cost $25 million to build the Hawkins Center, including the ongoing renovations.
Carodine said the center needed to be built because the old space in Farrior Hall was overcrowded after UF added three sports.
“We were already out of space by year 2000,” he said, adding that the student population has also increased.
Carodine said the renovations will help student athletes and others by creating more space for other advisers and incoming students during Preview.
“It benefits not just student athletes, but the entire university,” he said.
Advisers for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences can be found in the Academic Advising Center in Farrior Hall, which is connected to the Hawkins Center. The December renovations will add new office space for more of the college’s advisers, he said.
In Hawkins, nine advisers see 525 athletes, Carodine wrote in an email. Students can visit advisers as often as they want, he added. They work with the athletes’ academic advisers for their majors.
Dalton Guthrie, a UF political science junior who plays shortstop on the UF baseball team, said the longest he’s waited to see an adviser was 10 minutes since the center opened. The only adviser he meets with is his athletic adviser, he said.
“Before the Hawkins Center was open, we probably did have to wait longer,” the 20-year-old said.
Guthrie said he visits about twice a week to hang out with other athletes, see a tutor, study or go to the nutrition center.
“It’s definitely a big improvement,” he said. “It’s just more convenient; everything’s there.”
