Campus Projects

The Center for Student Success (CSS)

Located at the campus-defining intersection of Canal and East Main Streets, the CSS facility (now recognized as the Stoer Building) houses the majority of the College’s 14 Learning Specialists. These professionals engage in the essential core academic and developmental support function critical to Beacon’s undergraduate model and nation-leading student outcomes for collegians with learning and attention issues.

The Stoer Building is a historical structure (of approximately 150 years) that had been a guest house for visiting travelers – Annie Oakley prominent among these – and, once purchased by the College in 1989, served alternately as Beacon’s dining commons and administrative and instructional space. Now wholly devoted to the work of Beacon’s Learning Specialists, the building (designated as a historic architectural landmark) is in need of structural remediation (installation of a totally upgraded HVAC and electrical system, as well as the full replacement of the building’s roof, rafters, and insulation). The re-configuration and re-modeling of interior spaces – that once well-served its function as a place of lodging – must be achieved to accommodate the core academic “wrap-around” services delivered individually and in small group “open learning” sessions.

The underwriting costs of individual renovation/reconstruction projects range from $75,000 to $150,000. Naming Opportunities, including the lobby area, study lounges, and offices are available.

Naming Opportunities

Beacon’s Student Center

Formerly the region’s Social Security Administration’s central offices, the building that now serves as the College’s Student Center was secured by Beacon in 2014 through a purchase/gift arrangement with the executors of the local Burbank Family estate. After the transfer of the 8,800 sq. ft. property, the interior was renovated and the exterior reconstructed to create a comfortable and welcoming collegiate environment for student socialization, recreation, gatherings, and activities. The Center additionally houses the Campus Health Services and the major functions of the Division of Student Affairs, including the Dean’s office.

From the mid-Spring through the mid-Fall of 2020, the Student Center will be converted into the College’s main campus dining area during the total reconstruction of the existing Chopping Block Dining Commons and the upgrading of outdoor amenities adjacent to the facility. Once the College is able to transition its food services back to the reconstructed dining venue, Beacon intends to fully renovate the interior of the Student Center and add to the recreational and social elements that already attract a significant number of daily student and staff patrons.

Naming Opportunities

The Beacon Student Dining Commons

The “Chopping Block” Dining Commons has been one of the defining landmarks of Beacon’s presence on Leesburg’s Main Street since its purchase by the College in 2004. Once a popular bar and restaurant rich in City history, the facility had seen better days, but was in move-in condition and adequate in capacity to meet the dining needs of both students and the faculty and staff on campus. With time and an expanding enrollment, the “Chopping Block” slowly but assuredly was approaching its useful life as a dining facility that was inadequate both to evolving enrollment strains and the constant need for modernization and structural repair.

As part of a 2019 bond issue, Beacon secured approximately $2.1 million in tax-exempt bond financing to totally reconstruct and expand this central campus venue for dining, socialization, and down time between classes to decompress. In March of 2020, the College will totally reconstruct upon the existing location an entirely new dining facility that is welcoming, attractive, patronfriendly in ambiance and flow, and able to comfortably accommodate Beacon’s target population of 500 FTE undergraduates. The College is in the final stage of securing the adjacent First Street property to convert into a beautifully appointed walking park entrance to the new Dining Commons. This much needed addition to the central footprint of the campus is scheduled to be completed in late October of 2020.

Naming Opportunities

The Compass Center

In 2017, Beacon College purchased and converted to academic use a property previously owned by the American Legion of Leesburg. The resulting Compass Center became the hub of Beacon’s signature “wrap-around academic support” for the critical undergraduate and life skills of reading and writing. The delivery of these essential functions were relocated to this 5,700 sq. ft. facility as program advances (including evolving technology) and healthy enrollment growth outstripped the capacity of the prior location for these services on Main Street. Also situated in this building are the faculty and staff offices for core introductory curricular priorities, such as “Learning Essentials and Self Discovery,” and the integral services provided through Beacon’s singular “Community Educator” function.

Most prominently, however, the Compass Center, situated at the corner of Meadow and Third Streets, is home to the College’s Weiner Writing Center (with over 8,928 individual tutorial visits during AY 2018-19) and a newly created Beacon Center on Literacy, devoted to strengthening the reading mastery of our undergraduates and aligning these services with those offered by our writing professionals. The Naming Opportunity associated with the entire property will be directed to much needed exterior renovation in the context of the Compass Center’s core academic and developmental support purpose.

Naming Opportunities

New Residence Hall (R-2)

In June of 2019, Beacon College secured $5.2 million in tax-exempt bond financing to construct a new 96-bed, suite-style student residence, availing our undergraduates of both single- and two-bed (roommate) configurations. This 28,629 sq. ft housing facility, identified now with the moniker R-2, is the latest amenity-rich, leading-edge student residence constructed since the Spring of 2018, when The RAP (Plung, Alpern, Resnick Hall) was dedicated, affording 75 suite-style singlebed rooms to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

As Beacon College’s full-time undergraduate enrollment has more than doubled over the past five years, so too has the scope and sophistication of our residential and student services programming. Such advances have led to the smoothing of first-year transitions and the ultimate retention to graduation of previously uncertain “at-risk” students. Residential suites, when combined with well-designed and technology-enhanced communal spaces, provide an environment for healthy student interaction and personal development for our emerging adult population. In close proximity to The RAP and the Village Apartments, this new student residence (R-2) will be the “flagship” venue for a larger and diverse inter-class living and learning community of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. The R-2 Student Residence is scheduled to 5 be opened in August of 2020, immediately prior to the arrival of our collegians for the Fall semester.

Naming Opportunities

Beacon Center for Career Development & Transition

Essential to the outcomes desired for each Beacon collegian is the motivation and capacity to embrace the Life Abundant. Such a life is one of independence and the worthy work that will sustain this goal. The College has been intentional in prioritizing the elements of career development and placement, integrating this throughout our liberal arts-based curriculum, irrespective of Major, and in the “wraparound” services that tangibly define the “Beacon Experience.” Although Career Development has been an articulated priority of the “Beacon Experience” since 2010, it was in 2014 that the community dedicated itself to ensuring that Career Development and Placement both thematically and programmatically pervaded the College’s undergraduate preparation in a holistic fashion.

Beacon College has established a student-centered Career Development and Placements system that incorporates four core features that afford our collegians both a common framework and individualized support as they pursue their undergraduate years as a prelude to independence and worthy work. The College’s 83.5% post-degree employment/advanced study rate (within six months of graduation), we believe, is testimony to the combined effectiveness of these four elements: (1) the integration of a four-year Career Development sequence embedded directly into the undergraduate curriculum demanded of every student; (2) a required internship, (3) serious and outcome-driven work during junior and senior years with the College’s four Career Development and Placement professionals, and (4) the availability of supplementary paid summer internship, apprenticeship, Co-op, and First Career Community opportunities to meet individual student needs and interests.

All of this life-influencing work is coordinated through the College’s Career Development and Placement Center located on Meadow Street, nearby Beacon’s growing on-campus residence communities. This 4,019 sq. ft. facility, renovated in 2018, houses the professional Career Development staff, the Boven Career Development Center (a research, workplace, and counseling venue for Career Development and employment-related activities), as well as an as-of-yet unfinished classroom space. The Center joins our Writing and Literacy Centers, our Math Lab, and Center for Student Success as a key service that defines the Beacon “difference” to which our U.S.-leading collegiate outcomes and national rankings will attest.

Naming Opportunities