Funding Approved for Dixie State's Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons

Artist's drawing of the Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons building, to be built at Dixie State. Courtesy Deseret News.

ST. GEORGE – Dixie State College of Utah officials announced Wednesday that the Utah State Legislature approved $35 million in funding for DSC’s new Jeffrey R. Holland Centennial Commons Building (HCC). The $35 million in funding is the single-largest state appropriation for the institution in its near 100-year history.

Construction of the new HCC Building, which will be located just south of the existing Gardner Student Center on DSC’s Encampment Mall, will begin this summer with a formal groundbreaking to take place in July. DSC officials anticipate the project will be completed in late 2011 or early 2012.

Considered a top priority by DSC administrators and the Utah State Board of Regents, and rated fourth-overall by the Utah State Building Board, the 170,000 square foot, five-story HCC Building is the keystone of Dixie’s overall campus master plan to accommodate the growth that has already begun to transform the College. The state gave DSC $3 million last year to begin the design and planning for the proposed $48 million building. In addition, DSC received a $10 million anonymous donation for the construction of the building in 2008, which is the largest private donation DSC has ever received.

“The funding for the building is something that we have hoped for and we are so grateful to have received it from the state,” DSC President Dr. Stephen D. Nadauld said. “It is going to have a huge impact on our campus, because this building will provide the best possible opportunity for our students to get an education.

“This would not have happened without the support of our Regents, the State Building Board and our state legislature, especially Speaker David Clark and our Washington County delegation,” President Nadauld added. “We also express our thanks for the support of Governor [Gary] Herbert; we know his help has been important and is greatly appreciated. Everyone who has been involved has played an important role in helping this come to pass and benefiting our students.”

According to Stan Plewe, DSC Vice President of Administrative Services, the HCC Building will embody and symbolize Dixie State’s transition from a two-year to a four-year college and the seriousness of the academic mission the transition entailed. Plewe added that when completed, the HCC Building will serve as the intellectual and academic hub of Dixie State, while its central location on the campus’ historic Encampment Mall will instantly confer iconic status on the building.

“This is the culmination of years of dreaming, planning and hard work on the part of many people,” Plewe said. “We are so overjoyed to realize that what has been a big dream will now become a reality for our students, faculty, staff, and the Washington County community.”

When completed, HCC Building will become the new home of DSC’s library and English Department. Plewe added that the building will also support DSC’s mission to provide a student-centered learning environment by placing all the services students will need in one location, including registration, financial aid, advising and counseling, among other resources.

“The Holland Centennial Commons will be a ‘student success center’ offering all the resources and services students need to ensure their success at Dixie State College,” said Plewe. “Bringing all these functions and more under one roof will be instrumental in enriching and enlivening campus life.”

Plewe also noted that the HCC building will provide services that all competitive institutions of higher education must have, including flexible, well-equipped classrooms to facilitate innovate teaching; a central data center to serve the information technology needs of the campus; and a variety of areas for group and individual study suited to current computer-based learning.

“This building will give our students the kind of student support services they need, but more importantly, it will be a state-of-the-art digital learning center and library that will signal that Dixie has the kind of four-year quality education that any young person would be pleased to ascribe to,” Nadauld said.

The building’s namesake, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a 1961 graduate of Dixie College, is a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Dixie State College formally announced plans for the HCC Building in October of 2008, during the College’s Centennial Celebration Grand Gala concert. As part of the event, Elder Holland expressed his gratitude for the honor in a taped video message.

“I am thrilled with the growth and destiny of Dixie State,” Holland said in the message. “A centennial commons building is a wonderfully fitting addition to a school that has always featured its students and has always put them first.”

Holland went on to say that the proposed building is intended to acknowledge the many students who have come and gone at Dixie over the years, and those who will come in the future.

“There are infinitely more qualified and distinguished graduates who could, and should, be honored in connection with such a building,” Holland said humbly. “But if my name can, in any way, bring back the memory of so many others who also loved Dixie College, and who also went to school there, and still long to go back to those nostalgic days, then I’m more than happy – humble, but very happy – to lend my name to such a cause.”