Cisco College Expansion in Abilene Starting

roarkm@reporternews.com

Heavy cranes are putting up steel beams at the Abilene campus of Cisco College this week as work has begun on a 9,000-square-foot expansion.

The cost of the expansion is $1.5 million, said Cisco College President Bobby Smith. All of the money for the project has been raised through private foundations and from pledges and gifts from friends of the college.

Smith said the building originally was built so that it could be easily expanded as the college grew. The bulk of the new space will be used by allied health students.

“That’s a big area for us,” Smith explained. “We’ll have a new nursing lab, large classrooms, and offices on the second floor.”

Students, like those who receive a certificate or a degree in nursing, or in another health discipline, often go straight to a job from the classroom because of the demand for people with those skills, he said.

Amy Evans, Cisco’s communication director, said she and Smith were in Austin this week, and the economic forecast calls for schools to tighten their belts.

“We already receive the lowest amount of revenue per student,” she said. “We already do more with less than any other college in the state.”

Evans said the school is in the process of setting up its own foundation to lend a hand when money is needed. The $1.5 million for the expansion came from several different foundations, Evans added.

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