Shenandoah University has been named to Virginia Living’s Top High Schools and Colleges list for the third year in a row.
As part of the magazine’s State of Education 2015, a special bound-in supplement in the October issue, Shenandoah is honored in the Capital Improvements category for its Health & Life Sciences Building, which opened in the fall of 2014 and anchors the south corner of main campus, providing a state-of-the-art facility for health care education.
Replete with standard and active-learning classrooms, meeting and study spaces, and laboratories and lounges, the 71,000-square-foot building serves the university’s athletic training, biology, chemistry, nursing, respiratory care and pre-health programs.
The Health & Life Sciences Building also houses a 2,000 square-foot, 16-table cadaver lab; a nursing skills lab and simulation suite; and more than 50 offices for faculty and staff.
The three-story building is topped with a tower modeled after the tower on Howe Hall in Dayton, Virginia, harkening back to Shenandoah’s historic roots in that area. The tower boasts an impressive stained glass window that shines with the university crest, depicting the mountains and rivers of the institution’s home in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley.
Earl Swensson Associates (ESa) of Nashville, Tennessee, designed the building and Howard Shockey & Sons of Winchester, Virginia, served as the project’s general contractor.
Virginia Living’s Top High Schools and Colleges 2015, published in early September, recognizes innovation and excellence in secondary and higher education in the commonwealth across six categories: Arts & Humanities; Science, Math & Technology; Fine & Visual Arts; Capital Improvements; Athletics and Special Needs.
The university was recognized in 2014 in the Performing Arts category for its Performing Arts Medicine graduate certificate program because of the program’s innovative approach to educating health care professionals and performing arts educators on the prevention, assessment and management of injuries and disorders specific to dancers, theatre artists and musicians. The program was also recognized for its clinical research to determine best practices.
In 2013, the university’s pharmacogenomics and music production & recording technology programs were honored in the Science, Math and Technology category and the university’s partnership with Inova Health System was featured in the Co-Ops and Partnerships category.