The new health sciences building is scheduled to open in time for the fall semester and will house the Carr College of Nursing and the department of communication sciences and disorders.
Construction on the new building will be finished by August, giving the college of nursing and the CSD department time to move in before classes start August 20. The nursing program is currently located in the Olen Hendrix building and the CSD department occupies the first floor of the Reynolds building.
Dr. Beckie Weaver, dean of the college of allied health, said once CSD moves into the new building, they will be able to double their clinic space.
“We do offer a free clinic,” Weaver said. “People from the community come in to receive speech and language services. Over the course of a semester, more than 200 individuals will come in, many of them twice a week.”
This move, Weaver said, will be a huge boost to their clinical outreach and ease traffic congestion in the Reynolds, which is also home to the music, theater and communication departments.
Dr. Jim Miller, professor in the communications department, said that once CSD moves into the health sciences building, the department of communication will inherit the space it previously occupied. Student Publications is expected to move into the clinic area. Miller also stressed that while these were the official plans, they were also susceptible to change.
“We plan to move slowly, but by the beginning of the spring semester we anticipate that the department of communication will be operating almost entirely out of the first floor,” Miller said. “We hope to modify the clinic as needed and, as budgeted funds allow, to make it appropriate for Student Publications to occupy that area.”
The new building will also provide more space for the nursing department in the form of teaching and simulation labs.
Senior nursing major Aaron McGaughy said the new building has been long awaited.
“We have been living out of four classrooms for as long as the nursing department has been around and some of our current equipment that we learn with is outdated.” McGaughy said. “This new building will have state of the art simulation facilities and more than four classrooms. Needless to say we are excited about the new addition.”
