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Forsyth County, N.C., College Opens Technology, Student-Services Building

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 12:01 CST

By M. Paul Jackson, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

Mar. 3--Forsyth Technical Community College officially opened its technology and student-services building yesterday and said that it will help develop biotechnology workers in the Triad.

The 87,155-square-foot building is the first new building on its campus since 1996, Forsyth Tech officials said. It was opened during a media conference that included Forsyth Tech officials, Forsyth County legislators and Gov. Mike Easley.

The building, which cost $1.1 million, will house the college's biotechnology laboratories and classrooms, providing more space to educate those students, Easley said.

"Now, more than ever, it's really important that we graduate students who are prepared for this economy," Easley said. "This economy demands technology, and we have to provide it. That is what this building is doing."

The building was paid for through a statewide $3 billion higher-education bond referendum approved in 2000. Forsyth Tech got about $18 million.

The five-story building has about 29 classrooms and labs, a bookstore, a student vending area and 60 faculty and staff offices.

The Thomas H. Davis iTec Center, a computer lab that provides computer training for students, teachers and area employees, is on the fourth floor.

The state has been trying to shift out of its traditional manufacturing past and develop its biotechnology industry. The new building could help that industry grow by educating future workers and providing research services for area business, Gary Green, the president of Forsyth Tech said.

Many of the college's 140 biotechnology students are already using the building's laboratories on the third floor, which has 17,000 square feet. That floor has four wet labs, an immunology room and a bioprocessing room, officials said.

Previously, many of the college's biotechnology courses were held in two rooms in another building.

"This is at the center for some of those new jobs that are going to shape the economy of tomorrow," Green said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.

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Source: Winston-Salem Journal

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