Bulletin News
08/31/2009
The formal dedication of the $10 million SUNY Cortland Education Building and Child Care Center will be held at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, on the building's front lawn along Prospect Terrace.
President Erik J. Bitterbaum will preside over the ceremonies, which are free and open to the public. A reception and facility tours follow the event.
Scheduled speakers include Sen. James Seward, Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, Child Care Center Director Johanna Hartnett, SUNY Cortland Distinguished Young Alumnus and Windsor (N.Y.) School District Superintendent Jason A. Andrews '97, longtime associate professor of education at the Campus School and Associate Director Emerita of Admissions Angela Thurlow and SUNY Cortland Education Club officer Cari Scoppa.
The 31,000-square foot, three-story Education Building and Child Care Center has a Georgian contextual redbrick façade that features a large glass entranceway.
"The building provides a gateway from the middle campus to the academic quad," said Nasrin Parvizi, associate vice president for facilities management. "The design is very appropriate and blends the new with existing buildings."
Construction was completed in January 2009, when a second phase began with the $6 million renovation of adjacent Cornish Hall. The 44-year-old structure will be transformed into new spaces for offices, dedicated classrooms and computer rooms serving the School of Education departments. Work is slated to finish by Spring 2010.
Holt Architects of Ithaca, N.Y., provided the blueprint for the Education Building and Child Care Center. The first floor extends wider than the upper two floors and is dominated by the SUNY Cortland Child Care Center. Designed by noted childcare center planners Horizon Design, the center has eight rooms to serve 100 children ranging from infants and toddlers to pre-K ages.
A playground is nestled between the new building and Van Hoesen Hall. A $133,600 grant from the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, awarded in June 2007, was used to equip the site. The funds also furnished one room each for infants, toddlers and pre-school age children.
The state-of-the-art playground features playhouses made out of shrubs, greenery and mazes of plantings, a bike track, toddler and preschooler climbers, swings and gliders, small play houses, benches and a storage area.
The Education Building second floor houses the Field Placement Office and features a science demonstration classroom that seats 60 students, while another 60-person capacity classroom can be utilized as one single or two separate rooms.
The top floor has offices for the operations of the dean and associate dean of the School of Education and the chair of the Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department. Eight faculty offices and a conference room also are located on this floor.
Parvizi said that the building has met Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification standards, meaning that the materials and programmatic goals associated in its design and construction have met the nationally accepted benchmark for high performance green buildings.