After four years in the making, Sierra Vista campus ready to unveil Academic Tech building

UA South will finally cut the ribbon Sept. 20 on a building that has been four years in the making.

The Academic Technology Building is now the largest building on UA South's Sierra Vista campus and will help the campus move into the new age of university education, said Randall Groth, dean of UA South.

In order to finish the building, the main UA campus gave its southern sister $1.5 million.

The building will house nearly all of the campus' 25 faculty members, and features conference rooms, lecture classrooms, interactive television and computer labs, Groth said.

The building will help move UA South into an age in which the university must be brought to the students, rather than the students going to a centralized campus, he said.

"That was yesteryear," Groth said.

With its focus on distance learning, the new building will help students around the world to take classes at UA South, Groth said. All the students will need is Internet access.

UA South already has six courses offered online and Groth said there is also a student taking an Internet correspondence course who lives in Canada.

"Bottom line, it's the wave of the future," he said.

Groth also applauded the local community for all its help in pulling the campus through tough financial times.

The community poured millions of dollars into a huge effort to help UA South expand its campus, Groth said. He estimated that local businesses and benefactors raised nearly $7 million to help expand the campus.

"The community is really tickled" to see the building open, he said.

The building nearly died a premature death last year when the Arizona State Legislature did not fully fund the project.

UA South was supposed to get $1.5 million last year, the last of four payments adding up to $4.5 million, in order to fund the completion of the building.

However, when Governor Hull cut the university budget, the legislature did not pay UA South the $1.5 million it needed to put a roof on the new structure.

Groth said he is working to pay the main campus, dedicating $65,000 of the funds dedicated to open the building to paying back its debt.

"It's an obligation I have to the main campus," he said.

UA South is currently raising money to build an observatory and astronomy center, a child development center and a plant sciences center.