New CHBS building

When faculty move into the new Health and Behavioral Studies Building this summer, they will move into spaces specifically designed for their teaching and research.

"We're all excited about the move," said Dr. Sharon Lovell, dean of the college, who noted that faculty had input into the building's design. "We'll be able to employ the latest technologies and teaching methods in the new spaces."

Students and faculty also will have an easier time interacting across disciplines and across programs. "That's very important for current education and practice," Lovell said. "Interprofessional education, practice and research is critical now and our accrediting bodies require it so we designed the building so disciplines are mixed across floors, which will facilitate that kind of interaction."

Among the amenities are 13 research laboratories; 17 classrooms; 19 teaching laboratories; two lecture halls with seating for 165; a speech, language, hearing clinic; a food production laboratory; and a patient simulation laboratory.

Several teaching spaces resemble patient treatment areas in hospitals.

In addition to a custom design, the $45.6 million structure located adjacent to the Student Success Center will have more space.  "We have been very crowded in the spaces that we're currently using," Lovell said.

Location is another benefit, Lovell said. With frontage along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the six-story building is easy to find for those unfamiliar with the JMU campus. "We have the public coming into the building for our research labs and to receive services in our clinic," Lovell said. "And we have members of the public who will serve as simulated patients for our students to be able to assess and diagnose and determine treatment."

Four of the college's seven departments — communication sciences and disorders; health sciences; nursing; and social work — will make the building home, moving from the Health and Human Services Building on the campus east of Interstate 81. Three of those departments — communication sciences and disorders; health sciences; and social work — have been in the HHS building since it opened in 2000.

Lovell said the other three departments will, for the foreseeable future, remain where they have been, with kinesiology in Godwin Hall; graduate psychology in Johnston and Miller halls; and psychology in Miller Hall.