Rendering of The Center for Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Engagement & Learning. Photo: Winona State University
WINONA, Minn. (KWNO)-Winona State University (WSU) is hoping to secure funding from a bonding bill the state legislature is set to pass in the upcoming legislative session.
President Scott Olson said WSU would use the funding to construct a new building on the Winona campus.
“A building that we think is all about the future of the Minnesota economy,” Olson said during an interview on KWNO’s In the Know. “It’s about the intersection of math and statistics, computer science and arts and design. So many jobs in the future of the Minnesota economy are going to come out of that intersection.”
Olson said those programs are housed in the now obsolete Gildemeister Hall and Watkins Hall. He said Watkins, home to WSU’s computer science and art programs, was rated as the worst building in the Minn. State system.
Olson said Watkins and Gildemeister would be demolished to make way for the new building. Olson said the new facility would put Winona State on the cutting edge of math, statistics, computer science, and art.
“You have to have facilities that are equipped and positioned to be state of the art for those kinds of fields,” Olson said. “Those are fields that are very technical and very tech-intensive.”
Olson said the building would also be environmentally friendly which he says will ease the burden on taxpayers, keep tuition from rising and keep pollution out of the air. Both House and Senate Bonding Committees toured Winona State last fall.
The proposed building, named The Center for Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Engagement & Learning, would be 73,000 square feet and carries an estimated cost of $53 million, according to a post on WSU’s website. If the funding were approved, construction would begin this fall and the facility would open in the fall of 2026.
Lawmakers will begin the 2022 legislative session on Monday with an estimated $7.7 billion budget surplus.
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