Ceremony Kicks Off Start of New ‘Homes’ For Digital Arts
and Sculpture Programs

James Wilsterman, left, was among the most enthusiastic “tossers of symbolic dirt” in the recent groundbreaking for the new Sculpture and Digital Arts building complex. Wilsterman co-chaired the committee that planned the new buildings. Other dignitaries included students, trustees, and members of the Prop R Citizens Bond Oversight Committee, and former Fine Arts and Communication Division Dean Shannon O’Dunn.

By the end of the month, work had been underway for six weeks on the two new buildings, a 5,400-square-foot Sculpture Building and the 21,530-square-foot Digital Arts Building, both on the southwest corner of the campus.

The projects are expected to be finished late next year, said Tim Flood, campus facilities manager. The Digital Arts Building will house photography, digital art, multimedia, and media communications departments.

Within their specific disciplines, faculty point to space and flexibility as the principal improvements to be brought by the new buildings to the educational process.

Larger and better-equipped labs will be available in all areas of instruction, reducing the present realities of frequently making a lab work as a classroom also. Jimmy Sprague, president of the Grossmont College Sculpture Club described the consequences of students not being able to access needed workspace during bad weather.

Professor Suda House		Instructor Dr. Michael Emami		Grossmont College Sculpture Club President Jim Sprague

“Unlike our current studio, which doubles as a classroom, we won’t have to be constantly stacking and unstacking chairs,” said Photography Professor Suda House. In addition to House and Sprague, speakers included Dr. Michael Emami, representing the Media Communication Department faculty, Wendell Cutting, president of the GCCCD Governing Board, Grossmont College President Dr. Ted Martinez, Jr., and Dr. Roger Owens, Dean of Communication and Fine Arts. Cutting noted the importance of art in the quality of life, and Martinez said he was happy to anticipate a relief to the overcrowding that has plagued the Division for years, saying, “The little old woman who lived in the shoe has nothing on us.”

Space also is provided for the division’s growing multimedia production program embracing video, audio and print design and content in their digital evolution.

The new construction is funded by a combination of state bonds and Prop. R, the $207 million construction bond measure passed by voters in 2002. The buildings were designed by the architectural firm of Mosher Drew Watson Ferguson.

Prop. R is also principal to the funding of the new Science Building now under construction, and the $3.1 million entrance road improvement due for completion this winter.

By the end of the month, all the preparatory grading and excavating were finished, and workers were installing conduit and laying rebar for the beginning of above-grade construction early next year.