The University of Puget Sound announced Wednesday that it has secured a $500,000 pledge that will keep it on track to build a $22 million Center for Health Sciences on the campus in Tacomas North End.
The center, scheduled for construction next year, anchors the universitys 20-year master plan and will sit along North 11th Street. A university news release said the building will combine with a Commencement Walk landscape feature to knit together the north and south parts of campus.
Programs to be housed in the center include undergraduate-level exercise science and psychology, graduate-level occupational and physical therapy studies, and an interdisciplinary neuroscience program.
UPS also will move its occupational and physical therapy clinics there. More than 300 therapy patients a year receive free services at the clinics.
The Center for Health Sciences will be unlike any health sciences facility at any other liberal arts college in the nation, building upon Puget Sounds tradition of interdisciplinary innovation, UPS President Ronald R. Thomas said in a statement.
The $500,000 pledge was made by Carl and Renee Behnke of Seattle. Carl Behnke has served on the UPS board of trustees since 1985.
The university has now raised $13.7 million for the health sciences project, UPS spokeswoman Shirley Skeel said.
Matt Misterek, The News Tribune
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