Across Campus

Science Lab Building will meet demand for STEM and health students

About 150 students, faculty and staff members attended the April 15 groundbreaking ceremony for the new Science Laboratory Building on the Allendale Campus. 

Grand Valley administrators, state legislators and a student help break ground for the new Science Laboratory Building April 15. Construction will begin in July.
The 151,000-square-foot, four-story building will be located on Campus Drive next to the Fieldhouse, just south of the Recreation Center.
 
President Thomas J. Haas said the state’s investment in the project shows lawmakers believe in and have confidence in the university. “Support from the state is validation that Grand Valley is a vibrant, stable and forward-looking university that creates a learning environment for our students to succeed,” he said. “This new building will help us continue to attract talented students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and health professions fields.”
 
Provost Gayle R. Davis said the building can’t open soon enough. “We have needed this new building for quite a while,” said Davis. “We have 82 undergraduate programs and 30 graduate programs, and about 40 of them touch on the STEM and health professions in some way.”
 
Katie Carlson, the former vice president of Educational Affairs for Student Senate and a biology major, said the new building will help students majoring in the sciences have inspiring moments like she has had. “Small class sizes are very important,” she said. “The science programs are bursting at the seams with new and excited students who can no longer be housed within the walls of Padnos and Loutit. Grand Valley has helped me grow and develop in my field, and personal attention from faculty is crucial.”
 
Also taking part in the ceremony were Dean Fred Antczak, biology chair Neil MacDonald, Trustee David Hooker, and state Reps. Roger Victory and Rob VerHeulen.
 
The building will feature nine classrooms, 15 teaching laboratories, 14 faculty and student research laboratories, study spaces, offices and a greenhouse. The $55 million dollar facility will receive $30 million from the state; Grand Valley will bond the $25 million needed to complete the project. No tuition money will be needed for the building.
 
Construction will begin in July and will create 950 temporary construction jobs; the target move-in date is fall 2015.
 

HTM professor wins Pure Michigan contest

Patty Janes, associate professor of hospitality and tourism management, won the Pure Michigan Jump Start Competition with her idea called Michigan Cares for Tourism. Janes beat four other finalists to win $5,000 to implement her idea.
 
The competition was part of the Governor’s Conference on Tourism held at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center April 14-16. The finalists had three minutes to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.
 
Janes said Michigan Cares for Tourism is modeled after the national program Tourism Cares, which brings volunteers and the tourism community together to help clean up and restore important historic sites.
 
“It is such an honor to be selected as the first Pure Michigan Jump Start recipient,” said Janes. “It allows us to fulfill a dream. A dream for Michigan’s tourism industry to unite as a team and come together to restore Michigan tourism treasures, ultimately enhancing the experience for Michigan residents, visitors and our industry.”
 
Janes said the Department of Natural Resources Parks and Recreation Division, Tourism Cares, Grand Valley and Pure Michigan are working as a team to make an economic and environmental impact on Michigan’s tourism industry.
 
Michigan Cares for Tourism will clean up and restore one Michigan tourism site each year. The first is scheduled for October 6-7 when volunteers will work to restore Historic Mill Lake in the 20,000 acre Waterloo Recreation Area in Chelsea.
 
“Built in 1936, this cabin community complex is in need of our care,” said Janes. “This served as the first travel and outdoor recreation experience of Detroit inner city youth and has been closed since 2000. It will be restored to make an impact for urban youth, family reunions, conference retreats and so much more.”
 
Michigan Cares for Tourism has a Facebook page and can be found on twitter @MICares4tourism.
 

Students, faculty thank Washington

Students and faculty members in nursing and health professions had an opportunity to say “thank you” to the federal government when a Washington administrator visited the Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences. 
Students and faculty members from KCON and the College of Health Professions meet with HRSA administrator Marcia Brand, back row, second from right.
 
Marcia Brand, deputy administrator for the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, toured CHS on April 11. HRSA has awarded several million-dollar plus grants to the Kirkhof College of Nursing and College of Health Professions.
 
During Brand’s visit, grant administrators explained to her how the money was being used, and students told her how receiving scholarships or stipends made advancing their education possible and easier to balance multiple roles in their lives.
 
Mary Stayman-Schenk was working as a registered nurse after earning an associate’s degree. One day she had an opportunity to work with a Grand Valley nursing student who made an impression on her.
 
“She had this confidence and I knew that I wanted a piece of that,” Stayman-Schenk said. “I had wanted to come to Grand Valley but I was not sure if I could afford it.”
 
Stayman-Schenk was among the recipients of scholarship money from an HRSA grant devoted to increasing the diversity among the nation’s nursing workforce. Elaine Van Doren, associate dean for undergraduate nursing programs, received the grant that allowed an agreement with Grand Rapids and Muskegon community colleges to ease the transition for nursing students to complete a bachelor’s degree by offering stipends and scholarships. Stayman-Schenk and others each received $5,000 to be divided between tuition and other related expenses.
 
“It took away a lot of the anxiety of starting school again,” she said.
 
Andrew Booth, assistant professor and program director of physician assistant studies, explained how the department was able to expand the class size in PAS from 35 to 48 since 2011 because HRSA grant money was used to offer student scholarships and hire additional faculty members.
 
Brand said she was impressed with the collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to health care education present at Grand Valley’s nursing and health professions programs.
 
“As we dialogue about health professions training, it’s so different today from what it used to be,” said Brand. “Going forward, it will become more prevalent that team practice in primary care is necessary and vital to helping revise the health care system.”
 
A second HRSA grant was awarded to KCON to increase the number of primary care advanced practice nurses through the Advanced Nursing Education Traineeship program. Cynthia Coviak, associate dean for nursing research and faculty development, oversees this grant.
 

Women’s Commission will offer scholarships to ACE conference

Grand Valley’s Women’s Commission is providing scholarships for faculty and staff members who want to attend the Michigan ACE Women’s Network Conference in June.
 
The conference is June 3-4 at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing. The conference theme is “Build Inclusion: Lead, Act, Inspire,” and the keynote speaker is Susan Sturm, professor of law and social responsibility at Columbia University Law School.
 
More information about the Women’s Commission scholarship can be found at www.gvsu.edu/wcommission, under “Resources.” The deadline is April 26.
 
For more information about the conference, visit www.miacenetwork.org.
 

Volunteers needed for mock disaster

The Office of the Vice Provost for Health is seeking volunteers from the campus community to donate time during a mock disaster planned at the Cook-DeVos Center for Health  Sciences in early May.
 
Grand Valley’s Emergency Preparedness Team, county and local officials will use CHS as an alternate care site to Spectrum Health during the mock disaster, which is set for May 2-3.
 
Volunteers of all skill levels will be needed as alternate care site workers and victims. People interested in volunteering can contact Kathi Vande Guchte at Spectrum Health at (616) 391-1073 or Kathi.VandeGuchte@spectrumhealth.org.
 
Students, faculty and staff members who would like to volunteer during the event of a real community disaster are asked to register online with the Michigan Volunteer Registry, www.mivolunteerregistry.org. For more information, contact Katie Branch at branchka@gvsu.edu or x12729.

Page last modified April 19, 2013