Telegram and Gazette 4/5/16

WORCESTER – With snow swirling around the shivering crowd that came out for the occasion, Assumption College officials Monday afternoon broke ground on a new academic building on campus.

The planned 60,000-square-foot building, the college’s first major construction project since the Testa Science Center a dozen years ago, is expected to open in the fall of 2017.

Slated to go up between Fuller Hall and the Hagan Campus Center, the center is more than just a new addition at the school, Assumption’s President Francesco C. Cesareo said in his address. It's also “a visible manifestation of the centrality of the intellectual life of the campus and a manifestation of the mission of the institution,” he said.

Described by college officials as “state of the art,” the new academic center will feature seminar rooms, common study spaces, and a 400-seat performance hall equipped with high-tech acoustic systems. It will also contain 13 classrooms designed for “group-based learning” rather than traditional lecture-based instruction, said the project architect, Stephen Van Dyke of Nault Architects Inc. in Worcester.