COMMERCE, TX—Texas A&M University-Commerce’s nursing and health sciences building project received official scope and budget approval at The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents meeting in College Station that took place on Nov. 10. The new facility will house the departments of Nursing, Health and Human Performance, and the new Biomedical Institute for Regenerative Research. Scheduled to open in the spring of 2019. the new building is designed to create enhanced opportunities for a collegial interdisciplinary education, collaborative teaching and research.
The building will be located in the west central educational zone of the campus. As a significant gateway building to the campus along Texas Highway 11, and overlooking Gee Lake, this facility will require a dramatic presence. At the same time, this School must knit the fabric of the campus together and more fully define the edge of the University. The new School of Nursing and Health Sciences is projected to require a total of 111,950 square feet over four floors. This would accommodate the Nursing Department, the Health and Human Performance Department and the Biology Department, as well as general instruction classrooms, skills labs, and admissions advising functions. The planning amount for the project is $54,000,000 and the anticipated AACC is $41,200,000.
A&M-Commerce Distinguished Professor of the Department of Biological and Environmental Science Dr. Larry Lemanski leads the effort, and his goal is to see the institute become a world-class university-based research enterprise where faculty-level scientists, postdoctoral fellows and graduate and undergraduate students contribute to the expansive research enterprise.
An important additional action item on this week’s Board of Regents meeting agenda was the official confirmation of academic tenure to three A&M-Commerce faculty members.
According to new A&M-Commerce President Ray Keck, “The intellectual vitality and future leadership of this institution will only remain strong as long as we recruit and develop outstanding new generations of professors. The qualifications and achievements demonstrated by this group of newly tenured faculty reflect our commitment to a superior student-centered and rigorous academic program across all departments.”
Faculty members awarded tenure were: Professor of Higher Education and Learning Technologies, Dr. David L. Tan; Associate Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Dr. Judith Marchand Ball; and Professor of Agriculture, Dr. Randal M. Harp.
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