New learning center to break ground

Former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, who signed the budget bill authorizing the HealthStar initiative to build health sciences facilities at UW–Madison, will attend the groundbreaking ceremony for one of the project’s main buildings.

Thompson, now secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, will be in Madison Friday, Sept. 7, for a series of events marking groundbreaking for the Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC), a state-of-the-art learning facility for UW students in the health professions.

The center will be built immediately west of Rennebohm Hall, the new home of the School of Pharmacy.

The HealthStar project is a partnership between the state and the university to construct three buildings: Rennebohm Hall, the Health Sciences Learning Center, and the Interdisciplinary Research Complex.

Rennebohm Hall, which began construction in May 1998, will have a formal grand opening in late September.

The Health Sciences Learning Center is expected to be completed in 2003, and the Interdisciplinary Research Complex should be open in 2005.

“Secretary Thompson has been extremely supportive of the health sciences at UW–Madison in many ways,” says Medical School Dean Philip Farrell. “We are very pleased that he will return to Madison to join us for a big day in our history.”

The Health Sciences Learning Center is designed to be not just a sophisticated educational facility but the center of a statewide network of clinical training sites for students and a resource for continuing education of health care providers around Wisconsin. It will house the consolidated libraries of the health sciences schools and will feature extensive capabilities for distance education for students and professionals.