“We’re looking forward to this new facility where we can conduct training, store equipment and offer courses, all adjacent to our offices and close to the water.”
Anya Hanson
—Diving Safety Officer
The university’s Diving Research and Safety Program—and the hundreds of students, faculty and staff who are trained to scuba dive for recreation, research and education each year—will be among the many beneficiaries of the renewed Narragansett Bay Campus. The program offers nearly two dozen credit and non-credit scuba diving courses, from basic instruction to instructor training, research diving and underwater photography.
But according to Anya Hanson, URI’s diving safety officer, the program is presently spread out among multiple buildings on the Bay Campus and Kingston Campus, making it inefficient for the proper operation and management of a vital program for numerous academic and educational activities. We also don’t have adequate classroom and storage space, nor proper locker rooms and changing facilities for the program’s growing needs.
After construction is complete, the program will be located in the new Marine Operations Building. “We’re looking forward to this new facility where we can conduct training, store equipment and offer courses, all adjacent to our offices and close to the water,” said Hanson.
The garage door in the new facility will enable easier loading and unloading of equipment and a creates a staging area for cleaning equipment. In addition, the new space will have a dedicated classroom and dry area—separate from the wet spaces—for such uses as first aid and photography instruction.
“The new building will be so much more suitable, in every way, for our instruction and research needs,” Hanson said.