By Jessica Denilofs / Staff Writer, Aubrianna Plavajka / Staff Writer
By Jessica Denilofs / Staff Writer, Aubrianna Plavajka / Staff Writer
“Today our dream becomes a reality,” said School of Nursing Dean, Dr. Sandy Baker as she addressed nursing faculty and students.
The dream is the new School of Nursing and Science/Math Complex scheduled to be built and finished at Riverside City College by fall 2011.
“I like to say this project was like a ten year pregnancy,” Baker said. “Today, we go in to labor and in two years we’ll deliver a very large new nursing building.”
The building is being funded by both Bond Measure C and state funds which are supported by the Riverside Community College District Foundation.
The project has a budget of $85,158,833.
Fifty-nine million dollars will come from the state construction act funds and $25,850,533 will come from Bond Measure C.
The complex will consist of a 2-story nursing building which will be 37,000 square feet and a four story Science Building which will be 95,000 square feet.
These will hold 26 classrooms, 12 lecture halls, 12 laboratories, two teleconference rooms, a Cyber Cafe and a Healing Garden.
Facilites will also include a Human-Patient Simulator lab with a medical/surgery patient room, an exam room, a Labor and Delivery room and an Intensive Care Unit.
Students enrolled in the program will have the benefit of attaining access to all of the sophisticated technology that is used in the work place.
Various courses will be offered, such as a clinical skills laboratory, advanced training for nursing professionals and expanded laboratories for general sciences such as chemistry, mathematics, physical sciences and life sciences.
“The new building will enable (RCC Nursing graduates) to meet the community’s needs,” Baker said.
Crystal Frazer, a nursing student who will be graduating before the building is finished, shared her thoughts.
“We really need this building to accommodate more students,” Frazer said. “Nursing demands are so high there’s not enough schools.”
“Community College always produced great nurses,” said RCCD Board of Trustees President, Virginia Blumenthal. “Our nurses are often the most hired and most desired.”
Nursing students and ceremony attendees squeezed closely together as they watched and cheered while the ground was ceremonially broken with golden shovels.
In attendance was newly inaugurated Riverside City College President, Jan Muto, and Riverside Mayor, Ron Loveridge.
Chancellor Gregory Gray was presented with the ceremonial chrome shovel engraved with the date of the ground breaking, a tradition of Barnhart Inc., the company who provided the shovels and plaque.
Following the ceremony, smiling nursing students and faculty gathered for photo opportunities to remember their epic day together.