St. John’s University’s newest building on Queens campus is approaching the opening of a brand new building; The St. Vincent Center for Health Sciences. As construction is wrapping up, The Torch toured the center ahead of its Fall 2024 opening.
The building is replacing St. Vincent’s Hall. The new center is set to cost $78 million, according to a March 2021 press release, with funding from The New York State of Higher Education Capital Matching Grant (HECap). The University was funded $5 million to aid the construction of the building.
Leading the tour was Project Director of Space Management from the Department of Design and Construction Tobias Bisharat. Bisharat highlighted the multiple areas of the building, including classrooms holding up to 150 students, virtual reality rooms, anatomy labs, and chemistry labs.
The center is on schedule to open for operation on its initial opening date in Fall 2024. In a November 2023 sit-down interview with The Torch, University President Rev. Brian Shanley shared that they are aiming to prepare the building in Summer 2024 for it to be ready for operation the following semester.
“We’re hoping to get a certificate of occupancy in June [2024],” Shanley said. “I think it’s going to change people’s experience on campus.”
On the tour, too, were physicians assistant (PA) and nursing students. With the building being tailored to fit their degrees and education, they spoke to The Torch about their thoughts about the upcoming opening of the center.
“There will be a lot more interprofessional communication,” said first-year PA student Alex Sanchez, who emphasized that he was not previously exposed to many other health science students. “We don’t really see them too often. We might be able to interact a lot more.”
When reflecting on the new technology introduced within the center, Sanchez, along with fellow first-year PA students Nia Rivera and Jece Abuan, were most excited for the virtual reality feature.
“I didn’t even know they were going to do that,” Rivera said. “To be immersed fully into the anatomy of the body is really cool.”
Abuan touched on the importance the building will serve to commuter students. “It’s really nice to have a lot more space. We drive 30 minutes to an hour to campus,” he said. “The student places, I trust, are going to be really productive for us.”
Emma DerGarabedian, sophomore nursing student, has only one concern regarding the building, being “if it is going to be done on time.”
Along with sophomore nursing students Katelyn Valco, Niki Karavangelas and Carolyn Moglia, DeGarabedian is part of the first cohort of nursing students at St. John’s University. Being the first cohort, however, does not worry them.
“We have a big say on a lot of things,” Moglia said. “We get to go first in everything. Because there’s so few of us, [professors] ask us a lot and we have a hand in stuff.”
“As scary as it was in the beginning before we started, it was so comforting knowing they want us to succeed so bad, so we’re getting a lot of special attention that I think in other schools we probably wouldn’t get,” DeGarabedian said. “It’s just nice having someone checking up on you and having the staff push you to stay in the program no matter how hard it gets.”
Chair of the Department of Nursing Francine Laterza, PA Program Director Danielle Kruger and Chair of the Department of Health Sandra Beysolow were also on the tour accompanying their students.
“Like anything else, there will be challenges because it’s brand new. Our students look at it as an opportunity to work together, and to not work in silence,” Kruger said. “To socialize with each other, to learn with each other and to be exposed to each other’s profession.”
Nursing being a new major at St. John’s, with the first cohort beginning their studies in Fall 2022, Laterza told The Torch how small the class was. “It began with a very, very small group and has grown so quickly,” she said. “I think that the opportunity [the center] presents to the students is overwhelming to them and to us.”
