VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Valley City State University (VCSU) held a ceremony on Tuesday, July 9th outside of McCarthy Hall to officially mark the start of transformational work on the historic building.
McCarthy Hall will become the new home for VCSU’s nationally-recognized School of Education and Technology and STEM Education.
VCSU President Dr. Alan LaFave said “I’m happy that we’re able to preserve this historic facility and renovate it to its grandeur. This will modernize McCarthy Hall to serve as the destination school of education for our state and region for the next 50 years. This will have an incredible positive impact for our community, the teacher workforce in North Dakota, and for the incredible cutting-edge educational experiences that our faculty will provide to students,”
Valley City Public Schools Superintendent Josh Johnson said he and other school districts hope this project will help reduce the K-12 teacher shortage across the state.
“The modernized renovations of McCarthy Hall will extend 21st-century learning opportunities for current and future educators,” Dean of the VCSU School of Education Allen Burgad said. “We are very excited about the state of our technology literacy and STEM classrooms along with the new Children’s Literacy Lab. These learning centers will provide tremendous learning opportunities and prepare our next generation of educators.”
McCarthy Hall was built in the early 1930s and was used as a training school for prospective teachers attending VCSU. When the training school was closed the building housed a wide variety of VCSU courses including technology education and psychology. The renovation of McCarthy Hall is a part of the first-ever capital campaign project at VCSU.
The $13.5 million project is made possible through the generous support of donors and VCSU funds of $2 million raised locally along with another $11.5 million allocated by the North Dakota Legislature and approved by Gov. Doug Burgum.
VCSU faculty, community members and leaders in education attended the event on Tuesday, July 9th.
The following video recordings are courtesy of Wes Anderson, curator of the Barnes County Museum.
