Students Enthusiastic about Stockdale Center, Zorn Stadium

Students enter the Stockdale Center at the start of the 2024 fall semester. The building, which was opened in the 1960s, reopened this fall after a $6 million renovation.MONMOUTH, Ill. – As the clock struck noon on a bustling recent Tuesday at Monmouth College, the Wallace Hall carillon serenaded campus with a version of the John Kander-Fred Ebb classic made popular by Frank Sinatra, “Theme from New York, New York .”

It was an appropriate song for the day’s theme of “spreading the news” about the two major campus improvements made over the summer: the nearly complete $6 million renovation of Stockdale Center – Monmouth’s student center – and a $1.6 million renovation to April Zorn Memorial Stadium, home of the Fighting Scots football and track and field teams.

“It’s really nice,” said Mireyli Garcia-Aguilera of the new-look Stockdale Center. “It feels homey. There are just so many places to lounge.”

A freshman from Monmouth, Garcia-Aguilera wasn’t a student when a fire damaged the building in October 2022 and shuttered most of it for more than year. But two students – who just happened to be lounging on a giant sectional on the center’s lower level – were able to provide that perspective.

“That was our freshman year,” said Alyssa McDaniel ’26 of Gillespie, Illinois, who shared the sectional with Jillian Toth ’26 of El Paso, Illinois. “We’d only been here two months when it happened. I feel like the caf is back to where it was now.”

The renovated Stockdale Center offers students several areas to study, gather in small groups and engage in activities. “It's really nice. It feels homey. There are just so many places to lounge,” says Mireyli Garcia-Aguilera ’27.One area that will soon be back online in the Stockdale Center is Scotland Yard, a restaurant on the lower level that offers specialty items not served in the main cafeteria. Dean of Students Karen Ogorzalek said the college is targeting a late September opening of that area, shortly after the building is re-dedicated Sept. 20 as part of Family Weekend activities.

“I’m excited for the Mexican bowls to be back,” said McDaniel of a Scotland Yard staple. “They’re so good.”

Ogorzalek said the early returns on the renovation have been “very positive.”

“Students like hanging out there,” she said. “When I’ve been down there, there’ve been a lot of them. They’re making it their home. The renovation has really made the student center the student center. We really had the students in mind when we designed this space. The furniture is so comfortable.”

Ogorzalek said one student expressed the vibe that college officials were hoping to achieve.

“They said ‘It’s like hanging out in your grandma’s basement,’” she said. “They’ve really made it their home, and that’s what’s so heartwarming for me.”

Enabling the social aspect was part of the design, but Ogorzalek said the lower level also has a sensory room, which she called “a place to bring yourself down and decompress. And it’s got yoga mats, too, for students who want to do that. It can even be a quiet place to pray.”

‘The best I’ve ever played on’

A few hundred yards north of Stockdale Center is a place that’s not quiet at all – April Zorn Memorial Stadium. More than 100 student-athletes are on the Monmouth football team this year, and game days regularly draw large crowds to watch the Fighting Scots, a perennial power in not only the Midwest Conference, but also among Midwest schools who compete in NCAA Division III.

At April Zorn Memorial Stadium, Bobby Woll Memorial Field received a new turf and a new surrounding track is scheduled to be completed in late September.The stadium does share a similarity to Stockdale, as it also underwent a renovation that is in its final stages. The project brought new turf to the stadium’s Bobby Woll Memorial Field, and the surrounding track is scheduled to be completed later this month.

“This new turf is, by far, the best that I’ve ever played on,” said Ethan Delgado, a sophomore offensive lineman from Poplar Grove, Illinois. “Last spring, guys were getting sore joints, sore ligaments. Everyone’s loving this new surface. And it’s absolutely beautiful. The new turf and the new colors – it really makes it pop out.”

Those new colors include a lot of red, which coach Chad Braun noticed when he looked at the field designs at schools such as the University of Alabama and the University of Utah.

“I love it. It’s beautiful,” said Lorenzo Ramirez, a junior defensive lineman from Waukegan, Illinois. “It’s an amazing field, amazing to play on. The first time I saw it from a distance, I was like, ‘This is awesome, I want to get out and practice on it.’ It really creates a great atmosphere for the campus.”

The 88,600 square feet of new turf – SprinTurf’s DFE Ultrablade Extreme if you’re scoring at home – is a field green and lime-green combination, featuring a large red “M” at midfield.

Monmouth’s track and field teams are also a perennial power, rattling off 19 men’s outdoor Midwest Conference titles from 2001-21. Next spring, the Scots men and women will practice and compete on Beynon Sports’ 300 polyurethane surface, a World Athletics and GreenGuard Gold certified product that provides excellent shock absorbency for training and distance running. The red surface will add even more color to the stadium’s new look.

In the Scots’ football season opener on Sept. 7, played under Zorn Stadium’s lights, Monmouth came up just short against the nation’s No. 4 ranked team, losing 38-24 to Wartburg College.

But for Monmouth’s 436 student-athletes, the stadium renovation is definitely a win – and there figures to be many more victories to follow. The Scots’ next home football game is a Family Weekend contest Sept. 21 against Lawrence University.