South Hall, Mississippi State University’s newest residence hall, has completed construction and is now providing its first group of students housing.
Located between Rice Hall and McComas Hall, South Hall offers students many brand new elements as well as improvements to existing features of other residence halls.
“I’m excited about it,” Director of Housing and Residence Life Ann Bailey said. “Every time we build a new building; we do a little bit better, and I think we hit this one out of the park.”
One of South Hall’s unique attractions is a 16 screen media wall located in the lobby that can be viewed from the first and second floor common areas.
“The wall can play Blu-ray, has cable and USB inputs and each screen can be operated independently,” sophomore biomedical engineering student and Residential Adviser Sawyer Sumrall said. “A touch screen media control panel operates the whole thing.”
A new contract with Starkville’s MetroCast cable and Internet provider brings an extended channel lineup to every residence hall on campus.
“The media wall can display multiple channels at once, so it will be a great place to watch games with conflicting schedules,” Bailey said. “We expect to get a lot of use out of it this football season.”
Each floor of the 125,000 -square-foot residence hall features a kitchen with two stoves and a sink, a common area and a laundry room with multiple washers and dryers. The third and fourth floors of South Hall also have balconies on either side of the building.
All access points in South Hall, such as individual rooms and doors to the male and female wings, are controlled by proximity sensors that are unlocked with student’s university identification cards.
“It’s a whole new world,” Bailey said. “Mississippi State has become a resort.”
Each of South Hall’s 175 double-occupancy rooms have an independent thermostat, a private bathroom, two extra-long twin beds and full wireless as well as hard-line internet outlets. Every room also has a large MicroFridge unit and two desks.
“It really is awesome,” Sumrall said. “I’m dreading when I’ll have to move out.”
The co-residential South Hall houses 357 students, 315 of which are freshmen. Each of the residence hall’s four floors is divided into two wings, one for males and the other for females, with a resident adviser overseeing each wing.
The third floor of South Hall houses the university’s Global Leadership Continuum offices and conference rooms. The GLC is composed of the Day One Leadership Community, Appalachian Leadership Honors Program and other leadership programs. Students living on the third floor are members of the Day One Leadership Community.
Exclusive to South Hall and new to the school is the Band Community, a small group of upperclassmen who are members of the Famous Maroon Band. The Band Community is located in South Hall because of the close proximity to the band hall.
“It was a 30-minute walk or sometimes a 45-minute drive from my old room in Griffis to the band hall last year,” sophomore nutrition major Rachel Burke said. “This is definitely more convenient.”
The Band Community will hopefully reduce traffic around the band hall during afternoon practice.
“We are all still settling in, but everyone that I’ve talked to thinks it’s a great idea,” Burke said.