By Kaylee Franklin
Come spring of 2022 Trevecca will be cutting the ribbon of a new wing addition to the Greathouse Science building. The new wing will increase the buildings capacity by 33,000 square feet, hold interactive lab spaces, faculty offices, and overall adding more room for the largest school on campus.
“The largest school on our campus is the School of Arts and Sciences,” said Dr. Tom Middendorf, University provost. “With these departments we have seen unprecedented growth and it makes sense for us to get leadership and separate the two larger departments to create two different entities to become more focused and more synergized.”
In December of 2020, the university announced of the construction of the new addition to Greathouse Science Building. The new wing would begin the building process in March of 2021, but when students made their way back to campus in January, the construction shortly began.
“We wanted to get started as rapid as possible,” said Dr. Dan Boone, university president. “The sooner we started, the faster we could get finished.”
The building is expected to be finished by spring of 2022, but no final date has been announced.
In addition to the new science wing, students can expect to see some restructuring within the schools. Effective July 1, Trevecca will begin the journey of launching the school of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pushing these departments into one school. With the restructure will move the school of arts and sciences into the school of school of arts and social sciences.
“This is an exciting venture for us,” said Middendorf. “Trevecca is really primed for this because of the Nashville market and the opportunities in Nashville.”
Trevecca is still in search for a dean for the School of STEM but the hope is that pushing these departments into one school will allow for greater synergy.
“The Health Sciences wing is expected to be a $15 million project for which we received a construction guaranteed maximum price (GMP), said Mariano Monzu, chief financial officer. “The total cost includes hard (construction – i.e., steel) and soft (non-construction – i.e., technology) costs. It also includes contingency. The construction GMP accounts for about 80% of the total cost, so we feel confident that we will be on budget.”
Making these additions to campus approves academic quality, increases the general student population, and overall raises the profile of the university, said Middendorf.
“Everybody wins we raise the profile of our university, and this is just one of the ways of doing that,” said Middendorf.
