Take a look inside Fresno City College’s new $87M science building. ‘Already at capacity’
After months of construction, Fresno City College’s new three-level science building near the corner of Blackstone and Weldon avenues is finally open.
The huge glass and concrete building opened this week in time for the start of the college’s spring semester. The new building’s classrooms and labs will host 326 courses for chemistry, biology, physics, and engineering students.
Shirley McManus, dean of the college’s Math, Science and Engineering Division, said the division is home to nearly 11,000 full-time students — roughly 21% of Fresno City College’s enrollment — and its biology classes are a prerequisite for students into the popular nursing program, which is the largest among California community colleges.
The new building adds 21 classrooms for the community college, meaning the nursing program’s waitlist of about 1,700 students will shorten. The science building was almost at full capacity on opening day, McManus said.
“The building is already too small, we’re already at capacity when we opened it up. All we try to do is to catch up and have students and faculty have the space they need,” McManus said. “We increased chemistry by two labs. Biology has four labs. We increased two labs for physics, and engineering finally got a space.”
Located on the first floor, the engineering classroom is connected to a yard through a roll-up door, so students can work on larger-scale projects and experiment with various structures in cement and concrete. The division has an active Women in Engineering Club, McManus said.
The building’s rooms and halls are furnished with couches, chairs, desks with power ports and glass boards on the walls. Faculty said these facilities will promote collaboration and active learning.
“Now we have the ability to interact with students outside of the classrooms in these learning spaces that are all around us,” said Rodney Olsen, a biology professor. “In addition to that, we have on-site tutoring, where our tutors will be available in the building to work with students and to facilitate what’s going on inside the classrooms. So it’s really going to take us to the next level.”
The building’s construction was funded by $79 million from the 2016 Measure C facilities bond, $5 million from Fresno Unified School District and $3 million from the college’s budget. Three classrooms in the building are designated for junior and senior students at Design Science Middle College High School, a dual enrollment program hosted by Fresno Unified and the college.
Due to the early completion of the building, there were no additional classes added this semester as the course schedule was planned a year ahead, said Interim President Kim Armstrong. More classes will be offered in the new school year, and the college is hiring three new tenure-track faculty members. In recent years, Fresno City College has seen an annual 5% enrollment increase, she said.
This story was originally published January 21, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
