The University of North Georgia’s (UNG) Blue Ridge Campus hit a milestone April 24 when the school’s roof and exterior walls were completed.
Construction has now moved inside, and work is underway to complete the campus before the start of the Fall 2020 semester Monday, August 17.
“We call it ‘dried in,’” said Todd Bermann, director of capital planning and project management in the facilities department at UNG. “It is an important phase because we can start putting up interior walls.”
This milestone in the construction process comes eight months after construction began on the more than 12,000-square-foot building. Bermann said despite rain delays, the new standalone Blue Ridge Campus will be ready for occupancy in August 2020.
“We had built in some weather delays, but we exceeded those in December, January and February,” he said. “Now, we are expediting other areas to make up for that lost time.”
The necessity for a standalone Blue Ridge Campus stemmed from its exponential growth since opening in 2015. During the 2015-16 academic year, 20 students were enrolled. That number has since increased by nearly 800% with 175 students enrolled in the 2019-20 academic year.
“Not only UNG but the community and region needed to have a standalone campus to provide opportunities in education, economic development and workforce development to help grow this region,” said Sandy Ott, director of UNG’s Blue Ridge Campus. “This new campus is a game-changer because of the expanded access to education that it provides and the resulting impact on the region.”
The new building, located off Highway 515, will have four classrooms with one that doubles as a computer lab, and afull biology lab that can be converted into a chemistry lab.
Shared study spaces will also be available to students throughout the building.
Five dual-occupancy offices will be designated for faculty, while five offices will be for administration staff. Bermann estimates the facility will be ready for new furniture and equipment to be installed in July. Faculty may move into their offices the first of August.
Ott explained with more space UNG can offer more courses to students, which will allow them to spend more time at the Blue Ridge Campus. Currently, UNG students spend between a year and a year-and-a-half there taking required core curriculum classes before they transfer to the Gainesville or Dahlonega campus.
“The fundamental education courses for students who are pursuing a degree in education will be offered for the first time in Blue Ridge,” Ott said. “The students can actually stay here in Blue Ridge for up to another year. In the past, those courses had been offered at our other campuses: Dahlonega, Gainesville, Cumming or Ocoee, but now these education courses are in Blue Ridge that lead up to the Associate Degree level. So that’s really exciting.”
Education was one of the first programs UNG looked at offering in Blue Ridge due to the high interest Fannin County High School graduates expressed following their time with Fannin educators.
“There are so many students, particularly from Fannin County, that have had such strong teachers, and the school system here is so strong, that those students want to continue in the field of Education because of the role models they’ve had in this system,” Ott said. “Because there is such a high interest in education careers and the major here, that was on the of main reasons we wanted Education to be one of our first programs.”
UNG’s Blue Ridge campus will also be able to offer Anatomy & Physiology for the first time this year.
“We’re still ironing out the details for Fall 2021,” Ott said. “While we’re growing significantly in Fall 2020, we will continue to grow and expand our course offerings.”