Thursday, October 1, 2009 9:00 PM CDT
West building addition draws wide praise for LLC during grand opening
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Lake Land College horticulture student Stephanie Bloom was wild about the grand opening of the wider West Classroom Building on Wednesday.
“It’s really great meeting people today,” said Bloom, who came west to the West Building from Monroe, Ind. “I think it was very cool when they opened it.”
Bloom and her classmates Deb Stanberry of Greenup, Aaron Landsaw of Westfield, Brittany Beck of Mount Auburn and Danielle Craig of Chrisman were selling purple queen, Swedish Ivy, and Spider plants grown in the horticulture class at Lake Land, housed in the expanded building that is now the largest structure on campus.
The expansion, completed this summer, added space for technology, Illinois Department of Transportation training and more agriculture classes. The new classrooms and labs were in use at the start of the fall semester in August and the look and the technology of the building did raise some eyebrows for new students and employees of the college.
“This is definitely a state-of-the-art building,” said Lake Land College President Scott Lensink during a speech before guests at the grand opening. “We were able to bring 51,000 square feet online with this addition without adding to our utility bill.”
Geothermal and electricity- saving measures like daylight-harvesting lighting systems made that possible. This is part of the college’s green initiative to save money with energy efficiency, including wind, solar and other efforts.
“This addition is not costing a nickel extra in the budget. That is technology we’re proud of at Lake Land,” Lensink said.
Lake Land College Board of Trustees Chairman Jim Shaffer said the addition demonstrates the importance of keeping ahead on technology innovations. Those innovations were visible in some of the classrooms and labs in the different ag and technology departments in the West Building.
“Technology is changing so fast, we’re going to need innovations,” Shaffer said.
Carolyn Brown Hodge of the governor’s office said the West Building is one of the structures funded by the last round of capital project funding by the state for higher education in Illinois. That legislation was intended to replace “temporary buildings” that had stood for 30 years or more on some community college campuses.
The state provided the bulk of the money for the addition, one of several expansion projects on the Lake Land campus.
Mike Monahan of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association,told the audience at the grand opening that community colleges are the start of many successful careers in Illinois. And those students help boost their communities when they are finished with college.
“Fifty-five percent of community college graduates stay and work within their community college districts. That is a significant impact on the local economy,” he said.
State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said the West addition is an economic investment, while Rep. David Reis, an alumnus of Lake Land College, said he “can’t wait to see what you’ll have coming next.”
Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.
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Mama says wrote on Oct 4, 2009 5:19 AM: