Several new buildings have been reconstructed over the past year and one is currently in the process of being built.

Wayne State College will be getting a new building, the Center for Applied Technology, or the CAT.

“The CAT really came as a result of an article in the Omaha World Herald which said there was a major shortage of industrial education teachers, and to respond to that, Wayne State is the onlschool in Nebraska that has a four-year program in industrial technology education,” Vaughn Benson, dean of School of Business and Technology, said.

The center will have new, unique equipment and will be a top applied technology building in the state.

“To increase the number of graduates in the program we needed to have some enhanced facilities. The facilities over in Benthack are best described as worn out but the CAT will provide us with new facilities to address the teacher (education) side. The types of equipment in facilities the teacher (education) people need are also perfect for us to go into manufactural area and put our manufactural management concentration in place,” Benson said.

The Kanter Student Center dining hall was subject to major improvements over the summer. Additional seating has allowed for more people to be in the dining hall. 

Prior to reservations, the old hall was plain and felt just like a typical cafeteria. Michael Carlson, director of dining services, wanted to change it up and make it feel more like a restaurant. Carlson also believes WSC and Chartwells has succeeded in this attempt.

“An updated dining center facility adds newness, freshness and excitement to the student dining experience. Our intent was to create a more ‘restaurant’ type feel to the dining room environment,” Carlson said. “The students’ reaction has been consistently positive. The student feedback is that they are more excited to come to the dining center and they are more comfortable once they are seated.”

Along with the physical changes to the dining hall, students have new options for meal plans. On-campus students, except for freshmen, have the option of getting 15 meals per week plus flex, 19 meals per week plus flex, and 150 block meals plus flex. Freshmen can only get 15 or 19 meals a week plus flex. The block meal plan allows students to use the meal credits whenever they please. Students can use multiple meal credits in a single transaction and the credit gets deducted from the overall total for the semester.

Several of the dorms at WSC have been reconstructed over the years, but Bowen Hall is the most recent. Bowen had problems with the insulation and the exterior of the building and windows were deteriorating. Many students agreed that the residence hall needed to be updated.

“Bowen came up to the top of the priority list for a couple reasons. One is that the exterior of the building was wearing out and was difficult to keep outside air out and inside air in,” Jeff Carstens, vice president and dean of students, said. “The windows that were put in at the time it was built were single pane windows, aluminum framed, not very energy efficient, and they just didn’t last very long so there were a lot air coming which was hard to control the temperature and those windows were just wearing out.”

Another upcoming project is the press box, which is estimated to cost about 1.7 million. The old press box has been there for about 40 years and has some problems with safety, poor function of college events and more.

The press box will be used by football and track events for local high schools, which also played a role in rebuilding a new press box.

Several different programs will be able to use the press box including journalism, broadcasting, human performance and sport degrees.