A year’s worth of effort has gone into preparing the Longwood University campus for the U.S. Vice Presidential Debate even though candidates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence will debate for less than two hours.

According to Longwood Chief of Staff Justin Pope, there were several different ways the university prepared for the debate, including improvements made to campus, technology and the academic curriculum.

Many of the campus improvements were already a part of the school’s master plan, according to Pope, but moved forward in order to be completed prior to the debate. One of those projects was the new High Street Entry Way. Another was the new façade on Willett Hall, the debate venue.

He said they also built a short access way for trucks to unload equipment near Willet Hall. Rather than dumping a pile of gravel, they built a new passageway between Willett and the tennis court.

“After the debate, that space can now become a really nice pedestrian passageway with landscaping — it will go from being an ugly part of campus to an attractive one,” Pope said.

Additional aesthetic alterations have taken place, such as adding banners to many of the buildings on campus and improving sidewalks.

Pope said the information technology staff has put in a lot of work to prepare the campus networks to meet the demands of the debate. Along with that have come boosts and upgrades to cybersecurity, which put Longwood  far ahead of the game for the next several years, Pope said.

In regard to curriculum, Pope said, 30 classes were created in reaction to and in preparation for the debate.

Many of these courses are working toward building a new citizenship-focused general education curriculum, which the university will begin to put into motion over coming years.

“These courses really reinforce why this debate was such a good fit for our mission, and no other host institution to our knowledge has ever done anything close to this in terms of involving the academic side of the institution,” Pope said.

He also noted Longwood has helped to fund host speakers for each department to lecture about the obligations of citizenship. Several of these events have had full attendance, he said.

Other short-term alterations to campus have taken place. For example, Health and Fitness Center services were relocated to Longwood Landings on Main Street for the fall semester so that the center can be used by the media.

As the debate nears, security fencing has been placed around campus. This will become the barrier for the restricted area, according to Longwood’s debate website. Come debate day, only those with credentials will be granted access to certain parts of campus.