A bedroom in the new dorm complex at OSU-Cascades in Bend shows how students might decorate their rooms.(Jarod Opperman/Bulletin photo)

Heavy snow on a moving day may not be ideal for most, but the OSU-Cascades students getting settled in the university’s new residence hall didn’t seem to mind it.

Some of the nearly 60 students moving into the 304-bed residence hall on SW Chandler Avenue in Bend unpacked their belongings on Saturday to get settled for the new term, which begins Monday. While Tykeson Hall, the university’s academic building, was completed in fall 2016, construction crews have been working since then to get the residence hall ready for the winter 2017 term.

The dorms and common rooms in the building were complete with furniture this weekend, but a few signs of work being finished up remained outdoors. Some construction equipment was still on-site, for example, in addition to building materials around the outside of the residence hall.

Since the majority of the students moving into the new residence hall spent the fall term in Central Oregon Community College’s old dorm, Juniper Hall, OSU-Cascades paid a moving company to move students’ belongings to the new dorm. Many students brought items home with them over their monthlong winter break, so they also had some boxes or luggage of their own to haul in. Saturday included a lot of unpacking and organizing for most of them.

Shuffling in from the snow, freshmen roommates Connor Park, 18, and Austin Smith, 20, carried stereo equipment up to their second-floor room. The two lived in Juniper Hall during the fall term, but with other roommates. Going into the winter term, the friends decided they wanted to room together.

Arriving at their dorm, the two worked together balancing the stereo equipment so they could get out their key. On their door, their residential assistant, a student, had put Disney character cutouts with their names written on them. Dumbo the elephant for Smith and one of the 101 dalmatians for Park.

Park said his parents had come from Eugene to help him settle in. It helped to have an extra carload up.

“I’m really bad at packing so I didn’t realize how much I had brought home,” he said, chuckling. “My dad’s jealous of our dorms compared to what he had.”

To be sure, the new residence hall isn’t your stereotypical, dim, cramped dormitory. Windows over so much of the walls let natural light flood into the rooms and common areas. TVs in lounge areas and shared kitchens will allow students to plug in laptops or other devices to stream shows or test out class presentations. And a fitness center can help students stave off the Freshmen 15.

In the shared kitchens on each floor, there are lockers for students to store dry food without fear of it being eaten up by others, and the bathrooms are located in suites, so they are shared by just a few students instead of a whole floor.

While about three-fourths of the rooms are doubles with two beds, there are single and triple rooms as well. Some of the double rooms have a private bathroom, but most have a shared Jack-and-Jill bathroom with one other double room, leaving four people to a bathroom.

In the newly finished building just across from the residence hall are the dining hall, referred to as the Beaver Dam, administration offices, the mail room, laundry room and a room with wall racks and lockers for student residents to store their outdoor toys — from kayaks to skis.

For many of the student residents, Central Oregon’s outdoor opportunities were one of the attractions to OSU-Cascades, so the university created space for those belongings. The university also plans to install a bicycle repair workbench and a place for students to wax their snowboards and skis.

The storage room was good news for freshman resident Denali Emmons, 18, who enjoys nordic skiing. She’s happy to have a place to keep her cross-country skis with her in Bend, she said, since she has a season pass to Mt. Bachelor.

While the campus is currently 10 acres, the university is crafting plans to expand to either 56 acres or 128 acres. The 56-acre plan would include the existing campus with the new residence hall and the old pumice mine the university bought in January 2016. The 128-acre plan would include those sites and the old county landfill the university is looking to acquire.

In part because the campus is small, the university has tried to make its spaces multipurpose, Christine Coffin, director of communications and outreach, said during a tour earlier in the week.

“Flexibility is one of our guiding principles as we build out,” Coffin said. “Space is really sacred to us.”

That way in the future, buildings serving one purpose now could be changed to meet new needs.

In the administrative building that is also home to the dining hall, there are a few classrooms and even a “meditation space.” The room, made appealing by comfy furniture is a place students can reflect, do yoga, or even practice religion or prayer, Coffin said.

The Beaver Dam dining hall, open to students, faculty and staff now and open to the public Jan. 17, follows the trend of healthier and more diverse university dining. Instead of just cafeteria-style ready-made dishes, much of the food is made-to-order and from scratch, according to Tara Sanders, assistant director of dining services for Oregon State University. Sanders, who works in Corvallis, has been in Bend to help the new dining hall start out.

The Beaver Dam features a soup and salad bar, a “global” section with comfort foods from around the world that will change daily, and other offerings such as grains bowls, ramen, fajitas and pizza.

Blake Vawter, the university’s director of admissions and Jane Reynolds, director of enrollment services, were among the staff who stopped by the dining hall earlier in the week to check out the fare.

Reynolds said it’s been incredible to see the university grow from its one building at Central Oregon Community College to its own 10-acre campus. She also highlighted the flexibility of so much of the existing campus.

The question, she said, is, “How do you keep a heart of a campus” when a university is still expanding? She thinks OSU-Cascades is prepared to meet that challenge.

Vawter, who worked for OSU in Corvallis for 19 years before joining OSU-Cascades in July, said it’s not just the brand-new campus that helps him sell the university to potential students. It’s the “quality of the education — it’s an Oregon State degree,” he said.

The new campus becoming “tangible” has allowed OSU-Cascades to further distinguish itself, Vawter said.

“Part of rolling out a stand-alone campus is creating an identity that’s separate from COCC,” Vawter said, since the university used to hold classes at the community college.

Vawter said it’s been important for the university to cultivate an identity independent from OSU in Corvallis too, while still keeping a connection.

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, kfisicaro@bendbulletin.com