Southeast Community College’s campus in Milford has made the decision to transform its 100-year-old Nebraska Hall into a new student center for the campus.
The dorm was initially shut down in 2019 after no longer being fit for campus use before the expansion of the school led to the decision to turn it into a student center.
“We have had a lot of growth here on the campus,” Vice President and Executive Director Ed Koster said. “We've had 50% enrollment growth over the last five years, so creating more space for our programs has been critically important.”
A major goal of the new student center is to consolidate services as there currently is not a student center on campus.
“(The student center) will allow us to consolidate all of our student support services in one location,” Koster said. “Right now, we have to send students from one building to another to another for them to go to different offices whereas this way they'll all be located centrally in one building.”
The building will have three stories and will have very distinct purposes for each floor.
“The first floor will be a student union space, a space for students to gather, collaborate and do group projects,” Koster said. “It'll be open 24 hours a day for students to have access to computers and things after hours. The second floor is what I would call our student affairs area or student registration and admissions area.
“The third floor is designed strictly as a student support or success center. So counseling, career services, disability services all of those functions will be on the third floor.
The school has raised $1.5 million of its $2 million goal. The project was started last winter with the hopes of being completed in December and opening to students in January.
