UW-Green Bay officials visited largely unused campus facilities Monday morning, space they say could be used to accommodate the school’s growing engineering programs.

“[It’s] space we already have, square footage we already have, repurposing it for a new use,” Ray Cross, President of the University of Wisconsin said.

John Katers, Dean of UW-Green Bay’s College of Science, Engineering, and Technology says that the school’s engineering programs have grown dramatically, raising the need for more space.

“Fall of 2015 we had about 31 students combined in all three programs,” he said. “Fast forward three years to the Fall of 2018, and we had about 150 students in those programs, so that’s phenomenal growth.”

Gary Miller, Chancellor of UW-Green Bay says that the nature of an engineering program lends itself to the need for more space.

“They need access to it, sometimes off hours, out of class,” he said. “They need research space, and while we have that on campus, we expect that we’re experiencing a lot of growth in our engineering technology program, and so this seems to be a good use of this facility.”

The facility that would be remodeled for the engineering programs stands adjacent to the school’s new STEM facility.

The project would be a part of a larger, $38 million dollar project system-wide, a part of the $1.9 billion the UW system is asking for in capital funding.

Governor Tony Evers’ budget proposal sets aside $1.1 billion for the UW system.