President Gregerson Aims to Begin Construction of New Science Building in Spring 2020 

President Gregerson plans to continue the development of Pitt-Greensburg’s nursing program as early as next semester.

Pitt-Greensburg unveiled the new nursing skills lab in McKenna Hall after the White Lab Coat Ceremony on Aug. 28. The lab is a multimodal classroom, which blends a laboratory setting similar to a hospital and an area suited for lectures. The equipment within the nursing skills lab is portable.

President Gregerson officiated the White Lab Coat Ceremony and presented the nursing skills lab to students afterwards.

“All of the high-tech gadgetry that would be in a hospital room is there,” President Gregerson said. “After the [White Coat] Ceremony, we all walked over to McKenna Hall and had a reception in there and opened the lab. … It was a really nice event.”

The lab space was necessary for the nursing program, but its location is temporary. President Gregerson plans to move it into the new science building once its completed.

“Everything we did in McKenna Hall is mobile,” he said. “When the new science building is ready, we can move all those functions out of McKenna  and into the new science facility. And then, McKenna will be repurposed for other types of courses.”

The new science building will be similar to the building that was meant to be constructed in years past.

“There have been some stops and starts in the science building, as everybody knows,” President Gregerson said. “What we’re going to do is take the plans that were already in place, and maybe still tweak them a little bit, but overall it’ll probably conform to what was already planned.”

It will be around 17,000 to 18,000 square feet and two stories high, with laboratory space for chemistry, biology, physics, biochemistry, and the nursing program.

“[The building will have] modern, up-to-date, state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, and some faculty offices,” he said. “It’ll take what we’ve been able to do with the existing facilities and really enhance it for all the sciences.”

President Gregerson hopes to begin construction on the new science building next semester and complete it by 2021.

“Buildings that size take a while,” he said.