James Fox, Campus Carrier staff writer

With the groundbreaking ceremony occurring last Friday, construction will begin on a new building to house health sciences programs at Berry. The building, named Morgan-Bailey Hall, will consist of two floors for academic classes and a third floor that will serve as housing for upperclassmen. Its construction is scheduled to conclude in Fall 2025. 

Fundraising for Morgan-Bailey Hall, while not complete, has been promising, according to Associate Vice President for Advancement Scott Breithaupt.

“[We’ve raised] $25.8 million right now in terms of commitments for the building,” Breithaupt said. “We feel pretty good based on the requests we’ve gotten [from] a number of donors that are considering right now. We’ll find out in the next few weeks or a month what their answers will be, so we feel kind of cautiously optimistic that we’ll be getting to around $30 million easily.”

Breithaupt said that the Board of Trustees has donated a large part of the funding, but some of the funding is coming from other groups as well.

“The Board of Trustees as a group collectively have contributed a large amount of the funds so far,” Breithaupt said. “[One donor is] the Bryson Foundation. They’re out of North Carolina, and they’ve been long time friends of the college. Another anonymous Atlanta foundation admitted $5 million to us. And then we’ve had a number of alumni who have stepped forward. One from back in the 50’s wants to be anonymous, but he contributed a million dollars to the project.” 

One of the biggest funding challenges has been the speed at which the college is require to raise money. Breithaupt has been impressed with how quickly Berry has managed to fundraise considering the time constraints.

 “Normally a project like this may take up to three years to raise the money for it, and so we saw right away we had about 18 months at most to raise the money,” Breithaupt said. “All our fundraising team shifted gears and we focused almost entirely on that, and then some of our volunteers stepped forward to focus entirely on this project. The speed at which people have been helping us get to the goal line has just been great.”

Breithaupt is optimistic about the opportunities the new physician associate (PA) program will bring to Berry, Rome and northwest Georgia. He said it allows Berry to expand its mission of service into the healthcare field.

“I think at the end of the day, we’re just helping spread the Berry mission which is partially to serve our communities,” Breithaupt said. “And in this case it’s with the healthcare side of things. Rome has [Advent Health], [Atrium Health] and Harvard Clinic. We’ve always had this sort of base of healthcare in this part of the state.”

Morgan-Bailey Hall comes with many opportunities for Berry students. Dean of the Charter School of Education and Human Sciences Alan Hughes said that the nursing program, physician associate program and kinesiology will be housed in the building. Hughes stressed the importance of these programs having their own space.

“I think it’s important for professional programs to have space,” Hughes said. “Certain programs such as health sciences require more space, require more equipment, require more resources. I think having a dedicated space for a program like nursing is extremely important.” 

Nurses are in high demand right now and, according to Hughes, the health sciences building will help Berry stay competitive and meet that demand. Physician associates are also in high demand, and Berry is expecting PA students to flock here once the program has started.

 “There is a demand nationally for nurses, and I think a way for Berry to remain competitive is to do as much as it can to make the program strong,” Hughes said. “The PA program, you build it and they will come.If you don’t have PA’s then everyone is going to suffer because there’s not enough MDs to provide services to us in America.” 

Freshman Katie Hill also understands the demand for nurses and why Berry wants to devote more resources to its health sciences program.

 “My dad works for [Vanderbilt Hospital] and when [COVID-19] happened, a lot of nurses quit because it was too demanding of them,” Hill said. “It’s such an in-demand field. We have a lot of doctors, just not a lot of help.” 

Despite understanding why Berry is expanding their health sciences program, Hill expressed her concern with the decreasing attention to the humanities, which she believes to be evident in the devotion of so many resources to the health sciences building. 

“I am kind of concerned about how lots of colleges these days are focusing so heavily on the sciences and are disregarding more of the arts these days,” Hill said. “Less and less people are getting involved in the humanities. I think that’s really sad.” 

Hill was also worried about distracting noise that may arise from construction.

“The building is pretty close to Moon so I think [the construction] might get pretty loud,” Hill said. “I think we’ll get used to it, but it’s definitely not preferable. Especially with people in art when they need to focus. Sometimes having a calm, quiet environment is good for their creativity.” 

Despite some concerns, the general consensus on the new building is that it will bring good opportunities to study fields that are currently in high demand at Berry. Aside from student complaints about the removal of the Moon parking lot, Morgan-Bailey Hall is expected to be a welcome addition to Berry’s campus.