and Where We Need to Go
As the University continues to outpace predictions about its growth, space deficit emerges as a major concern. According to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the University is operating under a 200,000-square-foot deficit.
The new Bay Hall classroom building helps to address the University’s growing space deficit.Some facilities were historically meant to serve a much smaller group. The University field house, for example, was constructed for 800 students. Now it struggles to accommodate 10 times that number. The library, which was designed to serve 5,000 students and house a collection of 300,000 volumes, serves 8,300 students and houses 1.1 million books, periodicals and other publications.
New buildings are being planned to ease the University’s growing pains. A proposed new Kinesiology/Wellness building will replace the old field house. The new structure would serve a dual purpose—60 percent would be used for academic space and 40 percent for wellness, recreation and athletic purposes. A lead pledge of $1 million toward that building has been committed.
A donor gift of $5.2 million is also helping to make possible a College of Business building to ease overburdened classrooms and create more offices and laboratories. And as the College of Nursing and Health Sciences makes great strides toward meeting the area’s nursing education demands, a College of Nursing building is being proposed.
The new Performing Arts Center, Bay Hall and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies building are helping to meet the space deficit challenge. In February the University dedicated its new Math and Science Resource Center, designed to provide professional development for secondary science and mathematics teachers, who are in high demand in South Texas.
But while facilities are important to A&M-Corpus Christi’s future success, the University recognizes that new programs could significantly help raise its academic status. One of the more ambitious projections is for an architecture program within the School of Visual and Performing Arts. Such a move would give South Texas its first professional school. The new program could eventually lead to the University’s sixth college, a College of Arts and Architecture.
The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies is rapidly gaining ground as the premier institute of its type, and a coastal engineering program would meld perfectly with the Institute mission. In line with the University’s efforts at enhancing educational access for minority populations, and if additional external funding is secured, the University could work toward establishing a proposed Mexican-American Studies Center to mine the rich cultural heritage of South Texas. And an occupational therapy program is being considered to complement the prodigious strides made by the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. This would be only the second such program at a Texas university.
With the continued support of the friends of the University, facilities and programs will continue to expand and grow, enabling the University to carry on the themes of excellence, engagement and expansion that form the backbone of Momentum 2015, the University’s 10-year strategic plan.
By the Numbers Square-foot deficit under which the University is currently operating Number of people the University’s Field House was meant to accommodate Current enrollment Number of books and other publications housed at the 300,000-book capacity Bell
Library
Amount of lead gift toward a dedicated College of Business building A&M-Corpus Christi’s scenic campus is growing to meet enrollment increases. President's Report
2006
