Houstonian Online

Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: Campus News

Media Credit: Office of the President Breaking new ground. With the decade nearing its end, SHSU has made plans for new editions to the campus. Some of the changes made through the master plan are the destruction of King Hall, as well as a new building for the College of Criminal Justice. Parking garages and new housing will be added.

"If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people"- Chinese Proverb

Well, Sam Houston is planning for 10 years and its goal is to educate more people through the new 2020 Master Plan.

With the closing of the decade nearing, it is time for a new master plan for the Sam Houston campus, which accommodates for the potential growth over the next ten years.

"It is a plan that is primarily for capital construction, what we are going to build and tear down for about the next 10 years," President Gaertner said. "To know that, with any degree of certainty, you need a plan for what your enrollment is going to be, what programs you are going to be focusing on, and things like how many beds you want on campus."

"So with this new plan comes a lot of planning and assumptions to put together a realistic master plan.

Here are some of the major changes President Gaertner noted that the campus will see in the next 10 years.

"We plan to tear down all of the small student housing, like King Hall for example, and build additional student housing. We are going to tear down the LSC and build a new LSC on the same spot, and build new Nursing and Allied Health, Engineering and College of Business buildings and turn the old business building into general classrooms," President Gaertner said. "We also plan to add to the Criminal Justice and Education buildings. There will also be three structured parking garages being built."

The schedule for all of these improvements depends on many variables, so not all of these changes will happen at once. "The building schedule depends on our enrollment growth, the availability of funds, certain programs growing at a certain rate, and programs being approved, such as the Engineering and Nursing and Allied Health programs," President Gaertner said. "One of the very first projects we will have is going to be new dormitories and student housing because we need a certain number of beds available when we tear down the older houses. We will probably break ground [on the housing project] within the next year and a half or so and then probably after that Allied Health and Nursing."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools