WESTERN CAROLINA TO UNVEIL NEW
HIGH-TECH TRAINING CENTER NOV. 1

CULLOWHEE - Western Carolina University will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday, Nov. 1, to officially open its Center for Applied Technology, a high-technology training facility built with nearly $8 million in federal appropriations obtained with the support of U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor.

Encompassing 28,000 square feet, the building will be home for Western’s engineering laboratories for technology-based manufacturing, state-of-the-art commercial audio and video recording studios, and a center for the study of business-to-business sales.

Taylor and university officials will be among the participants in a public ceremony beginning at 10:30 a.m. The event will include tours of the new building and recently renovated facilities in the adjacent Belk Building, which houses high-tech equipment for Western’s recently approved engineering programs.

The University of North Carolina Board of Governors earlier this year authorized Western to pursue joint degree programs in electrical engineering and computer engineering in partnership with the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Western is expected to begin offering its first classes in electrical engineering in the 2004 fall semester.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, students and professors will be on hand to talk about their work in the new digital audio and video production studios, their use of three-dimensional epoxy laser modeling and rapid prototyping equipment, and their studies in the professional selling center.

The applied technology facility is located between Belk Building and E.J. Whitmire Stadium, and is immediately behind another major campus construction project, the Fine and Performing Arts Center. The technology center project was authorized in April 1998, ground broken in December 1999 and construction initiated in November 2001.

“We are delighted to celebrate the opening of the Center for Applied Technology,” said Western Carolina Chancellor John W. Bardo. “It gives our faculty and students a tremendous opportunity to address critical workforce issues and support the development of emerging high-tech, ‘new economy’ industries throughout Western North Carolina and beyond.”

For more information about the ribbon-cutting ceremony or the Center for Applied Technology (formerly called the Regional Workforce Leadership Development Center), contact Bill Studenc, director of news services, at (828) 227-3083.