The State System of Higher Education’s Board of Governors today approved three separate campus improvement projects for Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.

The Board approved plans to renovate Cheyney’s dining hall and hospitality center and to tear down the Evangeline Rachel Hall Education Building as a prelude to restoring the site to a park-like area. The renovation projects are expected to cost a combined $950,000 while the demolition of Rachel Hall and the restoration of the site will cost about $2 million.

Proposals to renovate the dining hall and hospitality center were included in a plan approved earlier this year by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights as part of a long-range effort to help revitalize Cheyney University’s campus. Cheyney is the oldest Historically Black College in the United States.

The Board of Governors in 1994 approved plans to renovate Rachel Hall at a cost of $6.6 million. It since has been determined that the building is not required to support the university’s academic mission so will be razed instead. The Legislature must approve the project before it can proceed.