Education Building Closed After May 17, New Building Pending Funding

Article Written by Mitchell Welker.

Spring 2024 will be the final semester in service for the Education Building. Beginning in late March, faculty and staff will have started relocating to other buildings on campus.

According to Dr. Abbey Zink, Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs, most will move to Stewart Hall, where Education faculty will have good opportunities for collaboration with themselves and other departments. She also says that a lot of faculty are excited to be moving into the new space.

The College of Education and Learning Design (CoE), the primary occupant of the Education Building, say on their social media pages that classes will still operate in the building through the end of the semester.

As for why the EB is shutting its doors, the first reason is more obvious to the eye.

“If you’ve been in the building, it’s older, and it’s got some issues,” said Dr. Zink.

But as with most strategic moves, it’s not just that simple.

“We’re supporting way too much space on campus in terms of the amount of space we have, and the number of students we have. So, we’re addressing the poor conditions of buildings and also our budget situation that we’re dealing with as well,” Dr. Zink said.

The provost remarked that it will be a win-win for providing CoE staff and students with better space and taking the Education Building offline.

When it comes to replacing the building, there was an unsuccessful attempt to convince the State of Minnesota to fund such a project this year. Dr. Zink remarked that SCSU’s bid for funding was ranked fairly high among the public institutions that asked for it this time around, but the university ultimately came up short.

“This may not be our year, but we’ll try again,” she said.

The new building, according to the provost, would be smaller than the current one but would be built to prepare future educators for the future of teaching. Most notably, classrooms would be more dynamic and allow shifting of walls and furniture to match that of futuristic classrooms in public schools across Minnesota today.