Connecticut State Department of Administrative Services

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DAS and SCSU Open the new Health and Human Services Building

Posted 9/19/2022
By Noel Petra
Construction Services

It was an exciting day for DAS and Southern Connecticut State University.

  

There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Health and Human Services Building on the Southern campus on Friday, September 16 . DAS’ Division of Construction Services played an integral role in the construction of the building overseeing multiple facets of the project.

  

The Department of Administrative Services Construction Services provides resources for State Building Construction Projects, including Project Initiation, Design, Administration, Bidding, and Construction.

  

The healthcare challenges posed by the Coronavirus underscore the importance of having top-notch facilities to train students and the programs and this facility will train the workforce for the state.  It was highlighted by each speaker about the profound effect a building like this will do to help train and retain students at SCSU.  It’s investments like these that will add highly skilled graduates into the Connecticut workforce ready for the health care challenges of today and for the future.

  

Among the highlights of the building are:

  • A home simulation apartment to train students from multiple professions in home care.

  • Expanded facilities for the Communication Disorders Clinic that will be able to serve more clients and train more graduate speech-language clinicians.

  • A human performance facility that will house Southern’s Running Injury Clinic and include labs for testing health and fitness, metabolism, neurophysiology and biomechanics. This includes a high-tech Bod Pod to measure body fat composition through air displacement, rather than having to be underwater. It also includes a biomechanics lab with motion capture technology, a high-tech treadmill and use of force plates for movement analysis.

  • An athletic training teaching lab.

  • A center for individuals with different abilities to have recreational opportunities that are supervised by recreational therapy students.

  • Two 60-seat lecture halls that can be joined together to form a large auditorium.

  • A demonstration kitchen classroom that seats 40 students and will be used by the Public Health Department for teaching nutrition, food safety and healthy food preparation.

  • A business presentation and collaboration classroom that seats 25 students.

 

Lots of “thank yous” were given during the ribbon-cutting event but we want to highlight our DCS Construction team, the architect firm of Svigals + Partner, Skanska USA Building, and Turner Construction Company which are all from Connecticut.