By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
As someone who grew up in the construction industry, it didn’t take long Jenna Herchler for to decide that BGSU was the place she wanted to go to college.
Now a junior in construction management, she said that the school has lived up to her expectations in the way that it links the classroom to the job site.
Herchler was speaking at the dedication Monday morning for the dedication Kokosing Hall on campus. This marks a major step for the School of the Built Environment, which includes Construction Management. The school dates to 1969 when the first construction technology courses were offered, noted Dean Jennie Gallimore of the College of Technology, Architecture, and Applied Engineering.
Kokosing , Inc., a Westerville construction firm, employs more than 30 BGSU graduates, about 1 percent of its work force of 3,100. That includes its president and co-CEO William Brett Burgett., 10 of whom were on hand.
It was in recognition of those ties to BGSU and their shared values that prompted the company that made the major gift to the project.
[RELATED: BGSU to name home of the School of the Built Environment after Kokosing Inc.]
Burgett said the BGSU has had a positive impact on the company, and the company was “excited to pay It forward and support students looking to join the construction industry” with the hands-on learning and upgraded classrooms Kokosing Hall will provide.
The new facility almost doubles the space for the School of the Built Environment. The only program of its type in Ohio, and one of the few in the country, brings together Construction Management and Architecture and Environmental Design. It brings together the people who design structures with the people charged with building them, Gallimore said.
They will be able to work together better out in the field because of the education received in the School for Built Environment, said Amy Shore, a member of the university’s Board of Trustees.
And the construction of Kokosing Hall represents another kind of collaboration, said Pam Conlin, vice president for university advancement: The power of private money to help a public university make a transformative change.
Kokosing Hall encompasses the new 22,900 square foot addition onto what was formerly called the Park Avenue Building, a former warehouse. The hall includes a materials lab complete with a bench oven, concrete compression testing machine, advanced audio-visual equipment, digital labs that include workstations with dual monitors, and new work desks and seating, installed to meet industry standards.
The development of the $10.4 million project came from university officials listening to people in industry “and moving forward to help those needs in partnerships with industry,” Shore said.
This helps not only the students by equipping them with the skills they need, but also boosts the state and the national economies.
“The advantage of having architecture and construction management together,” Gallimore said, “is that in order to actually build a building, the architects and construction people must come together and understand how the design of the building will work with the materials and the way the building is constructed.”
In the past she said, architects would provide the plan, and construction managers would determine it impractical, and “throw it back over the wall,” she said. Having closer coordination is more efficient. “This makes a significant difference in time and materials and everything it takes to create something in the world.”
President Rodney Rogers said that the development of this program is part of BGSU’s strategy for the future. “We have to make sure we have academic programs that are aligned with workforce needs, not only for today but in the future.“
Kokosing Hall is a manifestation of bringing together architecture and construction management. “Both those programs have been very strong for a very long time,” Rogers said. “Thinking about the next iteration of what those programs can do together is what we’re working on now.”
This fits into the university’s initiative to develop of programs in fields in which there is high demand, he said.
“We want to make sure the foundation of the education programs for our students provides them with all those important competencies around critical thinking and communication and understanding about how best to live in the world today. It’s not one or the other. That’s the foundation. But we want to make sure we have opportunities for students that have clear pathways into careers that are in high demand such as construction and architecture.”
Gerard Nadeau, an assistant professor of architecture and environmental design , envisions even broader collaborations.
The 6,700-foot Innovation Lab is big enough to build a small house in, he noted.
It, like much of Kokosing Hall, is still work in progress.
Equipment is stored in the corners as it arrives.
On Monday tables were set up and food service staff placed salads on the tables for the lunch that followed the dedication.
Off toward the sliding door, stood a three-part construction made of wood and designed by Nadeau. Last week, he explained, the school hosted an event bringing together art students, including opera performers, with architecture students.
The “Green World Annex” structure – in the same style as pieces he created for Arts X last December – was inspired by Shakespeare.
[RELATED: ArtsX sets the stage for creativity]
