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KSU Salem’s gym to be classrooms
By D.A. WILKINSON
SALEM
Photo
William D. Lewis| The Vindicator Jan Gibson senior program director of the radiology program at Salem KSU looks over old lab and equipment that will be replaced when an old gym at KSU Salem campus is renovated into classrooms and labs.
The home-vs.-visitor sign is still on the wall at the gym but is unlikely to be needed again.
The Kent State University Salem Campus is about to turn its gym into classrooms.
Terry Zocolo, the construction manager for the Kent branches in Salem and East Liverpool, on Tuesday explained the upcoming physical changes planned for the Salem campus.
“We’re doing two phases in three parts,” he said.
The new Health and Science Wing at the northern part of the building will have dedicated classrooms and labs for those involved in one of six two- and four-year programs.
To add more classrooms, the gym, rarely used by the school’s commuter students, had to go. The gym will become more classrooms.
Jan Gibson, the senior program director of radiology programs, said that as part of the project, the radiology and sonography equipment will be updated, permitting students to practice procedures as they are performed now in hospitals.
The program’s 85 graduates each year can find jobs, she added.
Kent officials estimate that 89 percent of its graduates remain in the area, and graduates from the medical program alone in 2009 earned more than $2.7 million.
She added that Kent is one of only three universities in Ohio to offer a bachelor’s degree in radiologic and imaging sciences.
Ruth McCullagh, a spokeswoman for the university, said the physical changes will encompass about one third of the entire building.
If student demand continues, a second floor — the third part — can be added.
Other attractions will be the relocation and expansion of the bookstore located in the middle of the building,
It will be moved to the north side of the building along with a new wireless Cyber Cafe.
The majority of the work should be done by late 2011.