Opening celebration set for Sept. 22 at ECU’s new Health Sciences Building
GREENVILLE, N.C. — Chancellor Steve Ballard and the East Carolina University Board of Trustees will celebrate the opening of the $66 million Health Sciences Building at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 22. The public is invited.
The four-story building on N.C. 43 houses the School of Allied Health Sciences, Laupus Library and the School of Nursing. Officials from the schools and library will hold individual ribbon cuttings following the combined ceremony. Speakers will be Ballard, ECU Board of Trustees Chair Steve Showfety, Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Michael Lewis, and Vice Chair of the UNC Board of Governors J. Craig Souza. Several members of the N.C. General Assembly will attend.
Allied health sciences, nursing and the Laupus Library moved to the new building this summer. Photo by Cliff Hollis.
Event parking will be available at ViQuest in the Pitt County Memorial Hospital lot at the intersection of Stantonsburg Road and Wellness Drive. A shuttle service will be provided 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Tours will begin at 12:30 p.m. and will end at 4 p.m. Among the many features in the 303,000-square-foot building, visitors will see concepts integration and patient simulation labs, which give nursing students the opportunity to perfect their technique and clinical skills in a controlled environment before working with actual patients. Classrooms with technology stations used by instructors will be open. Allied health sciences will demonstrate its distance education delivery methods and will show off the new ECU Speech-Language and Hearing Clinic and research labs, which serves adult and pediatric patients in eastern North Carolina. The physician assistant studies department will display mannequins and models used for instruction. The library’s computer lab, study carrels and casual reading spaces will be on display, as well as the 7,000-title history collection.
The site is providing interdisciplinary health sciences education, where doctors, nurses and other health care providers learn to work effectively in teams. Architects designed the building to encourage shared use of large classrooms, common space and courtyards. The schools and library have separate ground entrances and joint upper floor hallways.
Allied health sciences, nursing and the library moved this summer to the new building on west campus near the Brody School of Medicine and PCMH. Designed by architects Walter, Robbs, Callahan & Pierce of Winston-Salem, the health sciences building was made possible by a $3.1 billion statewide higher education facilities bond referendum passed in November 2000. At the time, it was the largest voter-approved bond program for higher education in the United States.
The building site covers 25 acres off N.C. 43.
Individuals with disabilities requesting accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act should contact the Department for Disability Support Services at (252) 328-6799 (V) or (252) 328-0899 (TTY).