Johns Hopkins officials, students and faculty will
gather on the East Baltimore campus at 4 p.m. on Tuesday,
Sept. 12, to break ground for the School of Medicine's
first new medical education building in more than a
quarter-century.
The S. Anne and C. Michael Armstrong Medical Education
Building, scheduled for completion by 2009, is named for
its chief benefactors, who contributed $20 million to the
estimated $45 million cost of construction on a site
between the Outpatient Center and the Denton A. Cooley
Center. C. Michael Armstrong is chairman of the Johns
Hopkins Medicine board of trustees and a contributor to the
Hopkins institutions.
The planned 100,000-square-foot, four-story education
building, on which construction will begin next year, will
incorporate a variety of learning settings, ranging from a
large lecture hall with seating for 360 students to
flexible lab space and study areas for groups as small as
three or four or up to 25, as well as ample study space for
each student.
Design is still under way for the four tiers of
classrooms, labs and offices in which students will be able
to access the latest digital communications technology for
tapping into network data and displaying digital images.
Instead of using conventional microscopes, they will have
virtual microscopy tools composed of high-resolution
monitors and displays that show multiple images housed on
centralized servers. Large screens at the end of each
dissection table in the anatomy labs will provide students
with digital reference tools.
"Extraordinary changes have taken place in medical
education and related technology since the last Hopkins
academic building, the Preclinical Teaching Building, was
constructed almost a quarter of a century ago," noted David
Nichols, vice dean for education at the School of Medicine.
"The new building and its design dovetail with our redesign
of the curriculum, both of which will foster fertile
exchange of ideas."
Edward D. Miller, dean of the medical school faculty
and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, said that in addition to
providing the latest technology to train physicians in
everything from genetics and medical imaging to
doctor-patient communications, the new building will serve
as a dramatic "front door" to the School of Medicine.
"When prospective students visit our campus, they will
come to it through this new building and see the place
where modern medical education began more than a century
ago and where it is leading the way once more," Miller
said. "We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mike
Armstrong and Anne for making this possible."
According to Nichols, design goals include maximum
flexibility for learning and teaching spaces, a "home away
from home" atmosphere for students, abundant yet controlled
natural lighting and an "iconic" physical presence that
harmonizes with the rest of the East Baltimore medical
campus.
The entry level will contain large lecture halls,
while the second floor will house the teaching labs and
academic computing operations. A home will be developed on
level three for the Advisory Colleges (each medical student
is assigned to one of four, named for illustrious Hopkins
faculty Daniel Nathans, Florence Sabin, Helen Taussig and
Vivien Thomas). The fourth floor will contain the anatomy
labs.
"As we reshape our curriculum to integrate learning
programs, blend clinical and basic science learning
experiences and introduce more small-group work, there is
no better time or place to introduce these new educational
concepts than a new building designed from the floor up to
accommodate and foster these educations initiatives,"
Miller said.
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