Next semester students will be seeing progress all across campus and it will not be just parking progress in the fall semester. The Allied Health and Sciences building will be opening its doors to digital arts and nursing students of GCC.

The new building is the result of generous donations from many sources in the community and is 60 percent funded by the state. Since the 1990s the building was planned to be home to a new nursing student facility and an airplane hanger. But the airplane hanger idea was thrown out when the program that GCC offered was cancelled.

The space on the first story then was left open for another department. After discussion and debate it was decided that the first story would house the digital arts department. The second story is going to be maintenance’s permanent offices, and the third story will be home to the nursing department as well as two nursing labs.

“The first floor for the digital arts students will be offering students four instructional classrooms, each with 27 work stations equipped with Macintosh computers,” said Rob Kibler, Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair.

Kibler also explained that one of the greatest benefits that the digital arts students will have is an open lab in the building. The open lab will be a 25-station room with no classes in it. This will allow the digital arts students to come into the room when they want to work on something without having to worry about interrupting a class in session.

The digital arts department is eager and hopes that the building will be able to meet the demands and needs for the growing number of students interested in the field.
The second story of the building will be the maintenance offices. The maintenance teams have never had an actual building with walls to call their home.

What is being offered for the maintenance teams as of right now are a shed at the north end of campus, some carts with their tools neatly stored in the back, and random cubby holes spread out across campus in various buildings.

Now the building will actually offer this department their own offices, actual set up workshops, and a professional loading dock. Director of Business Services Bill Taylor said that the trucks for the loading dock will even have their own lane.

Lew Lewis, Director of Facilities, is looking forward to decorating the hallway of the offices of the new building. Currently Lewis and his team plan on finding black and white photographs of the school through the ages and hang them on the walls.

“I’m staying on two years after this thing is done,” Lewis said in regards to the pride and happiness he has towards the building.

The nursing department will be the greatest beneficiary in this building. They will be moving from the San Fernando complex to the third floor. On the third floor the nursing department will gain access to not just one, but two nursing labs, fully equipped with state of the art hospital and computer labs. In addition to the two labs four classrooms will be up and running. If the nursing department is overflowing with students then the classrooms can be easily expanded from a lecture hall into a bigger lecture room.

A corner of the first floor will house the Emergency Medical Technician(EMT) program.

The students of the nursing department are ready to make the move from the bungalow styled classrooms to an actual building.
“The new building is going to help offer the nursing department more credibility,” said Angelica Trinidad, a nursing student. She and her classmates believe that the actual building will reflect the program well.

Bhupesh Parikh believes strongly in contributing to local community colleges. Parikh told NRIinternet.com “I believe smaller colleges offer bigger opportunities to middle and lower class students,” From his large donation Parikh will be given the honor of having the building named after him.

Three different departments will be changed for the better due to the generous contribution from Parikh and other parties. The building will finally provide concrete place for two groups that have not had that luxury on campus.