Health Professions Academic Building

As a new paradigm for healthcare leadership training in the Coastal Georgia region, the Health Professions Academic Building at Waters College of Health Professions will serve Georgia Southern University’s mission to drive economic and regional workforce development needs. The new building houses state-of-the art simulation facilities, nursing skills and assessment labs, a large multi-purpose space, conference room, classrooms, open collaboration spaces, student study rooms, shared lounge space, and active learning/teaching labs that serve many of the university’s programs, including cardiovascular interventional sciences, radiologic sciences, nuclear medicine, medical laboratory science, respiratory therapy, and communication sciences and disorders.

The building provides students with a school that feels and functions like a hospital. The Simulation Center, with high fidelity simulation labs and a clinical exam suite, is designed to provide hands-on experience in a space that reflects real-world medical environments. The flexible simulation rooms house sophisticated human patient simulators linked electronically with a robust AV system for detailed and extensive debriefing and learning. The clinical exam rooms feature a Sonography Suite.

At the heart of the building is the Memorial Health Active Learning Studio, a signature instructional space with two large expanses of glass and a sweeping ceiling. The area is outfitted for lectures and small-group settings for team learning. Teamwork is an important part of the healthcare curriculum, and the building includes areas where students can gather. A bar-level ledge along a bank of windows is designed for students to work on their laptops, and the windows provide natural light for the classroom labs across the hall.

The new construction coincides with the 46,000-sf renovation of Ashmore Hall, an adjacent building that houses office space for health professions faculty, as well as respiratory therapy and biodynamics labs.

The Waters College of Health Professions is the largest undergraduate health sciences college in the state. Georgia Southern’s allied healthcare programs represent almost one-fifth of all undergraduate healthcare degrees earned in Georgia.