When Loyola University students returned to campus this week, they found the word “Reimagine” in odd places — on yellow pennants left in their rooms and on the university’s Web site when they logged in to check e-mail.

Over breakfast Wednesday morning, five dorm-mates tried to guess what was going on. “Redoing the quad?” asked one.

“You think it’s something about being more green?” asked another.

The meaning will be revealed at a Saturday pep rally, when officials are to announce plans to remake campus life over the next five years.

According to details revealed to the Tribune, the university will build a new student union, expand the recreation building and transform the athletics center from what looks like a high school gym into a modern college arena.

Loyola’s shift to improving students’ experiences outside the classroom comes after a decade of focusing on new academic buildings, laboratories, a library and dorms.

“The last big issue was the student recreation space. We need more things for students to do on campus,” the Rev. Michael Garanzini, university president, told the Tribune.

“They love the neighborhood but they love getting out and going down to the bars — and I have to say this — near DePaul,” he said, a playful dig at the other large Catholic university in Chicago.

There will be changes big and small for the university’s 15,800 students: A 200-seat movie theater, a group cycling room, food court, student meeting rooms, prayer spaces, new lockers for athletes, even canoe rentals. “It will be 100 percent different,” said Robert Kelly, vice president for student development.

The $100 million project, to be completed by 2015, imagines a connected complex of five new or renovated buildings on the northwest section of the Rogers Park campus: a three-story intercollegiate athletics center, a renovated Gentile Center for the Ramblers, a 70,000-square-foot student union, an expanded Halas recreation center and a repurposed Centennial Forum, which will include the bookstore, alumni center, and an outdoor adventure program.

The building for student-athletes, which is to wrap around the Gentile Center and include a sports medicine facility, advising center and workout facilities, is expected to be completed first, by 2011. The Centennial Forum changes will be completed last, by 2015.

By that time, most of the students currently on campus will have graduated.

“That part is a little sad,” said freshman Rachel Dean-Webster, 19, after a reporter told her details about the improvements. “The union lacks a lot of things that other schools have. It doesn’t have anything to bring students together.”

Read the original article from Tribune News Services.