By Georgia Peyton —

University of Louisville is expanding its horizons with a new Arts & Sciences building in Portland.

This building is being renovated to provide a new space for the department of anthropology, the Hite Art Institute MFA program and the department of urban and public affairs.

The new teaching labs will be ready for use by Jan., 2019, and the building will include state of the art designs in the learning environment.

Located on Rowan Street, this building is a chance for the university to reach out to the community.

The college of arts and sciences has already begun to get more involved with the associations and people in the area.

The college’s dean, Kimberly Kempf-Leonard commented on the exciting new location and the great opportunities it provides.

“The Portland neighborhood will be great to house us. We’ve designed our spaces to accommodate learning opportunities to invite K-12 students to work with us and the venue will enable us to get to local schools and community spots more easily,” Kempf-Leonard said.

A large part of the college will have an opportunity to use the new location. The fine arts master’s (MFA) program will move to the Rowan Street location. Each graduate student in this program will have personal studios. Students who do lab work in archaeology classes will also be moved into this space.

Undergraduate arts and sciences student Bonnie George reacted to the news of the Rowan building.

“I’m really excited to see what new developments this brings to my class schedule. In the future, I can’t wait to learn and work in the new space,” George said.

In the future, more classes from other units will be added to the Rowan building.

Kempf-Leonard said this building was necessary for the department and this will be an enormous improvement especially for the MFA program and anthropology units.

“We have no space dedicated for the MFA program, and it is the only culminating degree program from studio artists in the area. There’s been a goal to identify space for the program for nearly 10 years as plans for the program developed,” Kempf-Leonard said.

“The current lab situation for anthropology is pretty dismal, so they need better space to accommodate both faculty and student research.”

Fine arts major Jasmine Kelly said the new facility will help increase her creativity.

“With such a great new location, surrounded by inspiring subject matter, I think my work will definitely benefit,” Kelly said.

Kempf-Leonard said she hopes this new academic building will achieve growth and exposure for the west end.

Photo Courtesy / The University of Louisville