Okla.-Based Rose State College to Begin Health Sciences Center Build

Aug 10, 02:19 PM

Current Headlines: By David Page

When Dan Points arrived at Rose State College in 1977 his office was in the oldest building on campus - the Health Sciences building.

About 10 years later Rose State officials began discussing the possibility of building a new facility for the Health Sciences Division.

"We have been talking about a new building for about 20 years," said Points, dean of Rose State's Health Sciences Division.

The size of his office reflects the cramped conditions throughout the building. There is only room for two chairs for visitors. If Points has three office visitors he has to move down the hall to a conference room.

But that is about to change.

A groundbreaking ceremony will be at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 16 on a $9.09 million health sciences center. Construction of the one-story, 47,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed in late 2008. The project is funded through the Higher Education Capitol Bond Issue of 2005. Atlas General Contractors of Bixby is the contractor for the building and Benham Companies of Oklahoma City is the architect.

"This new building will give us additional space for each of our seven Health Sciences programs," he said. "Right now we are so confined. Our students will have even more room to perfect their skills before they enter the work force."

The current Health Sciences building is about half the size as the new building. Much of the additional space will be used for clinical laboratories.

"We will be able to have more equipment for training because of the extra space," Points said.

Equipment in the current laboratories will be moved to the new building.

Since the current building was constructed as an insurance building, space had to be adapted for the laboratories, which did not always yield best conditions for students, he said.

The new building will also include classrooms, computer labs, conference rooms and offices for the 30 full-time health sciences faculty members. The program also has about 30 adjunct professors for the seven programs.

Rose State offers an associate in applied science degree in clinical laboratory technology, dental assisting, dental hygiene, health information technology, nursing science, radiologic technology and respiratory therapy.

About 350 students are expected to be enrolled in the programs this fall. Another 500 to 600 students at Rose State are taking classes required for admittance to the health sciences program.

The health sciences programs are costly for both the school and the students, Points said. More credit hours are needed for the health sciences degrees than for the normal associate degrees offered by Rose State.

"For the dental program, each student has to buy about $1,000 in equipment," he said.

Students also buy scrubs, textbooks and pay lab fees. Since a drug test and a criminal background check are required for admission to the program, students must also pay these fees.

The payoff is that jobs with good pay in Oklahoma await students completing the program.

"Most of our students are courted by potential employers for months before they graduate," Points said. "We can just about guarantee our students can get a good job offer after they graduate."

Rose State's health sciences programs currently are in two buildings - the Health Sciences building and the Health Sciences Annex located to the east across a parking lot.

The new building will be to the north of the two current facilities, which are on the south side of the campus near Interstate 40. Rose State plans to use the two current buildings for classrooms with the new building designed to meet the demands for the health sciences labs, he said.

"The college is looking at it as a three-building complex," Points said.

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