‘Unlimited’ potential: Evansville school district breaks ground on innovation center
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(Rendering Provided/Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.)
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(Rendering Provided/Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.)
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(Rendering Provided/Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.)
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(Rendering Provided/Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp.)
The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. broke ground Monday morning on the new Innovation Center for Science and Health in downtown Evansville.
The facility, being developed in partnership with the University of Evansville, will house the district’s Academy of Science & Medicine and part of its Health Professions program.
“It will provide additional capacity, because right now we have waiting lists for both [programs],” Superintendent David Smith said. “So we want to be able to double our enrollment by adding this increased capacity.”
The center is being developed at the former Welborn Clinic at 421 Chestnut Street, located on the same block as the Stone Family Center for Health Sciences. In addition to the district’s programs, the facility will become the new home for the University of Evansville’s Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice program.
Smith said creating a “power of place” for the district’s students is key to creating a pipeline of health care workers for both the city and region.
“Our kids do amazing things, but unless they are exposed to these kinds of opportunities, that talent remains untapped,” he said. “So we will be able to have university students mentor our high school students; they will be exposed to the same kind of opportunities that university students receive.”
The district’s Academy of Science & Medicine program was founded in 2015 and serves 250 students annually in fields ranging from nursing and mental health to occupational therapy, biomedical research, and medical school preparation.
With its proximity to the Stone Family Center, the new facility is being designed to encourage cross-disciplinary learning with shared labs, clinical simulation areas, and flexible instructional spaces.
UE President Christopher Pietruszkiewicz said the partnership will help address an ongoing unmet need for health care professionals in southwest Indiana.
“We know that 75% of the students that are in the two programs at EVSC that will be housed at the new innovation center…stay in health care, and they stay in Evansville,” Pietruszkiewicz said. “If we’re talking about a university and a school corporation that are primarily invested in making our community a little bit better, what a great partnership to be able to happen for all of us, so that we benefit not only the state of Indiana, but southwest Indiana in particular.”
The university is making an additional commitment through the partnership in the form of scholarships for a select number of students in the Academy of Science & Medicine program who choose to continue their education at UE.
Five students each year will receive full-ride scholarships to UE, and Pietruszkiewicz said the goal is to keep them in Evansville both to further their education at the graduate level and then move into the workforce.
“My hope is that they then end up back downtown again as part of either our nurse anesthesia program, our physical therapy program or our PA program, and keep them all here in Evansville to be able to address some of the health care needs that we have,” he said.
Smith, who is retiring at the end of the current academic year, said he thinks the future is “incredibly bright” for the new facility and its programs.
“I know folks want it to be a training hub, not just for this community, but for the Midwest, for the nation,” he said. “I think we’re just building upon the Stone Center. And now this partnership with the University of Evansville and EVSC, it will continue to grow and grow and grow. Fifteen to 20 years from now, I think people will be able to point to this day and say this was a game changer for our entire region.”
Construction on the Innovation Center for Science and Health will begin immediately and is expected to be complete in 2026.