BEATRICE – Southeast Community College held a work session Tuesday at Milford, updating the school’s board of governors on a busy construction time on the Lincoln Campus.

Dr. Bev Cummins, the SCC Lincoln Campus Director, says the Sandhills Global Technology Center is expected to begin operating in January of next year.

"This is for design and drafting technology, computer information technology...it is biotechnology as well as electronic systems."

A new welding technology center located on the north side of the Lincoln Campus….is going up quickly. It is expected to begin classes in August of 2025.

Because of several new facilities…sidewalk construction is also planned to connect the various buildings….along with a loop road throughout the campus.

Cummins says program and student enrollment growth has created the need for more parking.  "The fact that the residence halls are full...we need to start thinking about where that second residence hall goes, sooner rather than later. Instead of building a concrete parking lot we're going to go to a gravel one for now, to meet that demand. So, they'll be working on it sometime this summer and it's kind of a space on that north side....just to the south of the welding technology center."

Cummins says the temporary parking lot….though not an ideal solution…will provide an extra 250 spaces. A sidewalk would connect the lot with other campus facilities. It would be accessed by a road along the east side of the Lincoln Campus.

A new student residence hall on the Lincoln Campus….Woodhaven Hall…has drawn 292 student applicants for 246 bed spaces….meaning SCC plans to convert some first-floor rooms to three….rather than two beds each.

At Beatrice, Campus Director Brett Bright says a new welding technology building is nearly finished. It will provide welding classes for agriculture students along with space that can be used by local manufacturers for training. Bright says about $1.5 million in ARPA funds were used to finance it.

"We started the sod work in September, laid the utilities in October. We did building walls and roof in December. We set the welding booths in February and we've been working on drywall and paint from March through May. We will have the center complete in June. So, it's basically a one-year timeline."

The new four-thousand square foot facility at the west side of the Beatrice campus includes twenty welding booths and three drafting booths.  Fundraising also continues for a planned agriculture program expansion at Beatrice.