Complex’s dedication ceremony commemorates new era for three UF Health Science Center colleges

A dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony, held this spring at the University of Florida, marked the opening of a sophisticated and technologically advanced new home for the colleges of Health Professions, Nursing and Pharmacy.

The 173,133-square-foot structure, called the Health Professions/Nursing/Pharmacy Complex, provides educational, administrative and research space for the three colleges. Each college has its own entrance and facilities, and a 500-seat auditorium is available to faculty and students from the entire UF Health Science Center for special events. Construction on the five-story, $24.7 million structure began in December 2000.

Shared classrooms, lecture halls and teaching laboratories are located on the ground and first floors while faculty and staff offices occupy the upper floors.

A student services center for all three colleges offers admissions materials, program information, and academic and financial counseling. The merging of the three colleges’ support services space is in keeping with UF’s strategic plan, which emphasizes the sharing of resources.

Specially designed classrooms, wireless technology and videoconferencing capabilities enhance the three colleges’ nine distance learning degree programs.

The completion of the new complex signifies the end of decades of space insufficiencies for the College of Health Professions and gives the college its first permanent home. The college’s six departments have never shared a common space, having occupied locations in five separate buildings prior to moving into the new facility.

“For the first time in our history, the College of Health Professions has a unified space with the majority of our programs under one roof,” said Robert Frank, Ph.D., dean of the college. “Our students and faculty members have more opportunities to interact, and we are now able to create more interdisciplinary research and education programs.”

Unique features of the Health Professions’ area of the building include a practicum testing center with one-way observation windows and video recording capabilities for rehabilitation counseling students. Cameras and TV screens in a large physical therapy skills laboratory display live camera shots of various exercises and movements of parts of the body.

The building also includes an activities-of-daily-living laboratory with a working kitchen, bathroom and living room, designed to resemble a typical home environment, where occupational therapy students can practice training patients to regain skills such as bathing, dressing, grooming and meal planning.