Construction crews set up chain-link barricades and revved up the backhoe Oct. 15 as work began on St. Thomas More College’s much-needed $8 million expansion.

The 12,000-square-foot project is still expected to wrap up by the end of next summer as originally planned, despite starting several months behind schedule. The three-storey expansion will provide more classrooms, offices and a central atrium for students to congregate.

About half of STM’s classes are currently being taught in other buildings on campus. The addition, which includes two 100-seat lecture halls, is expected to boost the college’s capacity by 25 per cent.

“We’re very much crammed for space,” STM President Terry Downey said from his second floor office overlooking the construction site.

“This is the first expansion here in more than four decades.”

The last time STM’s building expanded was in the 1960s, when the college only had about 750 students. There are roughly triple that now, with between 1,800 and 2,000 undergraduates currently enrolled in STM courses.

The existing facility has three wings and the addition will connect a fourth directly along College Drive to create an inner courtyard, or quadrangle.

“We’re enclosing [the building] and then putting an atrium over the centre for receptions or for student areas,” Downey said.

The construction site will temporarily take over a 100-metre strip of sidewalk on College Drive and the bus stop in front of the STM chapel has been moved a block west.

Downey took over as college president last fall. Soon after taking office, he launched the Creating More campaign to shore up funding for the expansion project and for the creation of an endowed chair, or professorship, of Catholic studies.

The campaign set out to raise $4 million for the building expansion and $2 million for the creation of the chair.

Downey said the college already had $6 million banked for both projects.

The college recently announced the Creating More campaign had received three donations totalling $2 million. Prominent local philanthropists Leslie and Irene Dubé contributed $1 million to the creation of the chair and David and Karen Host of Warman and Allan Markin of Calgary contributed $500,000 each for the building expansion.

“We’re down to $3 million remaining for the building expansion and $1 million remaining for the chair of Catholic studies,” Downey said.

Catholic studies involves the study of the traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church, as well as the church’s relationship with other religious denominations of the world. The endowment is the second of its kind in Western Canada.

“We think it’s important that students that graduate from university these days have a sense of the great faiths around the world,” Downey said.

“The adherence of the those faiths obviously has an impact on what policy looks like in various nations across the globe.”

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Photo: Richard Medernach