Trustees approve plans for $69.5M medical campus in Evansville

The city of Evansville will get a new school, and Bloomington’s campus will get new gateways, the Board of Trustees decided at Friday’s meeting.

The trustees approved plans for the IU School of Medicine Multi-Institutional Academic Health and Science and Research Center-Evansville, to be built in downtown Evansville.

“At the time when a lot of cities in America are struggling and nobody’s doing much about it, I think it’s extraordinary to see the support of the city and all the people of the city are really behind this,” Trustee Randall Tobias said at the morning facilities and auxiliaries committee meeting.

The $69.5 million plan includes a new 170,000 square foot campus. It’s projected to earn the city of Evansville $340 million by 2020.

While there were four proposed sites for the school, President Michael McRobbie endorsed the downtown location specifically, and the board unanimously approved it Friday afternoon at the business meeting.

The trustees’ other business involved approving satellite campus chancellor appointments and construction projects.

Ray Wallace, current provost and senior vice chancellor of University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, was appointed chancellor for IU-Southeast.

Susan Sciame-Giesecke was made chancellor of IU-Kokomo after having served as interim chancellor since September 2012.

Two new gateways, similar to the Sample Gates, were approved for installation on the IU-Bloomington campus.

One will mark the campus’s Third and Union Street boundary. In addition to the actual gates, there will be an engraved wall made of limestone.

“We quickly came to the conclusion that we’re really not here to create new traditions with this,” University Landscape Architect Mia Williams said. “We’re about enforcing the excellent traditions we have.”

The Chi Omega gates, which currently stand at the end of the North Jordan extension, will be moved intact to the Woodlawn and bypass gateway of the Bloomington campus, Williams said.

The Board, approving all new degrees, added four degrees to IU, two degrees to IU-Southeast and one degree to IU-South Bend.

IU’s new degrees are a master of science in computational linguistics, bachelor of arts in biotechnology, bachelor of fine arts in dance and bachelor of science in computational linguistics.

IU-Southeast will be adding a bachelor of science in music and bachelor of science in sociology to its degree programs, and IU-South Bend will now offer a bachelor of arts in sustainability degree.

The business meeting included IUSA President Jose Mitjavila’s student report, in which he brought up the lack of intramural practice space now that the new baseball fields are built in their place.

“A lot of students were having to go off campus to Bryan Park and other areas to practice intramural sports and things of that nature,” Mitjavila said. “In some cases, really late at night.”

Tom Morrison, vice president for capital planning and facilities, said the old baseball fields are being renovated for intramural and recreational space as soon as the weather turns.