Construction of a new “green” addition to the nursing building housing the will begin at Cal State University Long Beach in August 2009.
The $5.5 million project, which officials say will be completed in May 2010, received approval from the board of trustees last week.
Loucine Huckabay, director of the impacted CSULB Nursing Program, said she is very grateful for approval of the new project.
“[However], this new addition of three more classrooms will be hardly enough to house our current 870 students,” Huckabay said. “If we had two or more stories added, we would have the potential to increase our enrollments.”
Impacted doesn’t mean a lack of classrooms. Huckabay refers to it as the “lack of budget to educate” students. “This includes [the] lack of funds for faculty, space and infrastructure support,” Huckabay said.
Currently, the nursing program has two classrooms, the largest of which holds 30 students. Chairs and desks are limited.
“Often times our students sit on the floor in the classroom or in the aisles,” Huckabay said. But with this new building, “students will have chairs to sit on in the classroom.”
The addition will provide the nursing students with four new classrooms. Two of the three classrooms will seat 60 students while the other will seat 30. It will also have one computer lab that will hold an additional 50 students for testing purposes.
“It will be cool,” said nursing major Lisa Cai. “Maybe [there will be] more stimulation labs for more practice so we don’t have to go off campus.”
Although the structure won’t provide seats for everybody in the program, students think positively of the new addition. They hope it will keep them from having to travel the six miles to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center for training.
They are also pleased that their classes will be in a centralized area instead of being spread out in different locations throughout the campus.
“It’ll be less of a hassle for us, said Paul Wong, a transfer nursing student. “Our classes are in no set area, it’s where we have open rooms.”
New faculty will not be hired, and the program’s student load will not increase with the addition of the new structure.
In addition to the four classrooms, administrative and secretarial offices will be built. Though Huckabay said faculty offices are “desperately” needed, they will not be included in this addition.
Fundraisers for the nursing department collected $2.3 million and the state will provide the other $3.2 million for the project.
These costs include “equipment, architectural/engineering fees, testing and inspection, a site survey, and the cost of the construction,” said project manager and architect Sam Mori.
The building will not only help students, but also the environment.
Mori said “the building is being designed to a LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environment Design as set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council) Silver equivalent building.”
According to their website, the U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit community that works to make “green” buildings available to everyone. LEED is a third-party certified program which gives the tools to builders to make eco-friendly buildings. This includes drought tolerant landscaping, water conserving plumbing, energy efficient heating and air systems and the use of natural daylight.
“The exterior walls will be steel studs with stucco plaster with brick accents, insulation and drywall,” Mori said.
Pre-nursing major Elizabeth Kwak feels good about the new building.
“If the facilities are good, the learning environment will be more positive,” she said.
Because parking spaces in Lot 2 will be unavailable due to the new structure,
there will be “accessible parking in Lot 1,” Mori stated.
