CONTRIBUTING WRITER – DANIEL MATHEU
ORIGINALLY PRINTED ON FEB 2, 2023
It has been three months since the first day of construction of the new building, Blank Sheppard, honoring the donors who are funding the construction of the new building. The donors are Leland Blank and Sallie Sheppard, known for the establishment of an undergraduate scholarship endowment at St. Mary’s in 2012 for Engineering students.
The new laboratories will introduce; communal areas and programs concentrating on advanced manufacturing, instrumentation, data science and machine learning. The building will essentially work as an incubator for innovative ideas. Reverse engineering, additive manufacturing, logistics, human/computer interface and engineering design will also be additional study areas. The third floor of the building will be a dedicated space for educating students in the planned Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.
As a St. Mary’s University student, I am proud that the new building will offer many opportunities for new students. I believe that creating a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program will benefit both the students and the university’s image. According to predictions, Texas is one of the States that will need nurses the most by 2030. I am excited to see the building’s completion and to be able to enter the new building. Equipped with modern machines, it will offer a lot of opportunities for the new students planning to take engineering or nursing courses. As a sophomore student, my hope is that I can take advantage of the possibilities that this new building will have to offer during my senior year. Attending some of my senior classes there and working with the latest machines would be a dream come true.
The construction of this building, which is being built during the ongoing semester, distracts students taking classes at Richter. Leon Harb said: “I used to like that area around Subway, but now, the sound makes it impossible to enjoy my Subway food.” I agree with Leon; walking over there, meeting with friends within the area, going to the Subway, or talking about how our classes went has become almost impossible. I used to have a habit of going to the library to do homework or study, but now it has become virtually impossible. I hope the construction will be finished by the end of this summer so that every student can enjoy the possibilities of the new building and the Subway area again.
Understandably, construction of this caliber has to be carried out in the shortest possible time, even if it means having to hear the machines working every day, practically from any part of the campus. For the sake of all the students, one would hope that the construction of the building will be complete as soon as possible so that we can all enjoy the advantages of having a facility equipped with modern infrastructure and the life that the area used to have.