DUBLIN — Buildings at Bladen Community College are expected to wrap up quickly over the rest of the year, with the continuing education building being 95 percent complete.
The college is building a $6.5 million Continuing Education and Workforce Development Building and an almost $2 million STEM and Advanced Manufacturing Technology Training Facility. STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Jay Stanley, the vice president of finance and administration, updated trustees at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting.
“The roof work is almost finished,” he said, estimating that contractors are almost 99 percent finished with the soffit panels and trim.
“We anticipate the project being complete within the next 30 days,” he said. “Of course we have some holidays that will be in the mix of that.”
Stanley said that it was certainly feasible that classes can be held in the new facilities in the spring. The back of the building will have a doorway for the emergency services lab, and concrete is going to be used for the entrance to the lab instead of the originally planned asphalt.
The STEM building is about 99 percent finished, he reported. There have been some holdups because of the weather, and he hopes that the parking lot will be finished this week. Also, some of the equipment that is being moved into the new building will have to be hardwired, so that is on the table as well.
“We had to wait until the floor was sealed before we could move all that machinery,” he said. “That’s in place now and they are hooking that up to the electrical.”
Erin Groves, Student Government Association president, presented a report on some of the happenings on campus.
“We have a lot of good things going on,” she said.
Currently they are passing out T-shirts to incoming spring registrants. They also have a coat drive, hygiene drive and an upcoming blood drive that had been rescheduled. The blood drive will be 9 am. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 2, the Monday after Thanksgiving.
In her Faculty Senate report, Re Gena Gilliam made a few announcement, including the Ghost Stories talk Oct. 31, and their trick-or-treat table display contest.
“These tables were created from varying departments across campus,” she said. “The cosmetology department won the contest. They were voted on by students.
“The food pantry is currently sponsoring Thanksgiving dinners for students that have expressed a need,” she said.
Aaron Cox, the manager of Central Services, said that the staff council — which is new — has a meeting planned for early January.
“We would also be talking about staff council scholarships,” he said. “That would be something that we could implement. We also wanted to look into outreach programs and staff council sponsored events.”