In addition, Dakota College at Bottineau will be launching its dental assisting program in a new downtown Minot building this fall, while looking for new space for its nursing program now housed in Trinity-St. Joseph’s.

Minot State University President Steve Shirley and DCB Campus Dean Carmen Simone outlined future plans for their institutions before the legislative Higher Education Committee in Minot Wednesday.

A $750,000 appropriation from the 2023 Legislature will allow for the demolition of Dakota Residence Hall this summer. Shirley said demolition of the nearly 100-year-old building will ease the deferred maintenance costs the university faces as well as reduce the liability risk of the vacant building. The area will remain green space once the hall is gone, Shirley said.

A public-private partnership between the MSU Foundation and a private entrepreneur is behind a proposed early childhood facility, primarily for 2-5-year-olds, across the street from campus on foundation land. Construction is to start this summer, Shirley said.

Jill Schramm/MDN Minot State University President Steve Shirley, left, stands among broadcast equipment in the KMSU broadcasting center in Harnett Hall as he leads a legislative higher education committee on a tour Wednesday. From left are Sen. Ronald Sorvaag, Rep. Landon Bahl, Dakota College at Bottineau Dean Carmen Simone, MSU Vice President of Advancement Rick Hedberg and Rep. Mike Schatz.

“We do have some needs that we’re continuing to work on, and again, most of that is coming through privately raised dollars,” he added. “We’re going to replace our greenhouse. … That’s about a $150,000 project – doing that with private funds this summer.”

Hoffman Science Auditorium, one of the main lecture halls, needs renovations, and private donors are being sought to rehabilitate the nearly 70-year-old building, he said.

MSU also is looking to improve space this summer for programs such as cybersecurity, data science and entrepreneurship, using private donations from leveraged state Challenge grant money.

During the last legislative session, lawmakers indicated an intent to provide just over $8 million in renovation money to MSU in 2025, requiring a local match of $400,000. Shirley said that money, if appropriated next session, would help modernize facilities for cybersecurity, data science, entrepreneurship, nursing, exercise science and other sciences.

“Model Hall is the home to our math and computer science areas. So, you have one of our most cutting edge, technological areas in one of our oldest buildings,” Shirley said. “Certainly that would be at the top of the list of where some of those dollars would be allocated.”

Renovations also are planned on the first and second floors of the Student Center. Shirley said bids far exceeded the expected cost, so the project is on pause while the design is reevaluated.

The pressure from growing athletics programs is impacting facilities, too, Shirley said. The 45-year-old Dome is in need of renovations, he said.

“It’s a very important space for the campus but certainly for this half of the state. It attracts a lot of state events and a lot of major events,” Shirley said.

Additionally, needs exist within some residence halls.

“Cook and McCulloch Hall, in particular, are very dated and very old and we’ve done what we can over the years. But we, at some point, are probably going to have to take one of those down and either completely renovate, where we start over, or just knock one down and put a new one up,” Shirley said.

Simone raised similar concerns about residence halls on the Bottineau campus.

“We’re going to need to address our student housing needs in Bottineau,” she said. “There is no place else for our students to live in that community. We desperately need housing. Our units are at the end of life. We have got to figure out how we’re going to move that forward.”

Although the Legislature hasn’t typically allowed state funds to go toward housing, that option is in place this biennium.

“It would help Dakota College tremendously to be able to use state dollars to build housing on campus. So that’s our first hope is that we can make that happen. If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to have to figure out another way to build those halls. It’s got to happen,” Simone said. “We’ve gone through architectural services to look at whether it makes sense to renovate some of our old facilities, or to knock them down and build completely new, and for the price, building new is actually more economically feasible for us. And we’re going to have to figure out how we can do that and stage that, because we need our housing. We can’t afford to really knock down all those buildings at the same time, so it’s going to have to be a phased approach.”

She noted prospective students see the outdated campus housing with deteriorating infrastructure and don’t want to stay there. DCB has about 120 students in housing but has capacity for 240.

“That’s what allows us to think about staging some of this. Because if we were to take one of those halls offline and fill the other two to full capacity, we can probably manage,” Simone said.

DCB’s Old Main renovation project is moving toward a September completion, Simone said. The building will house the nursing, medical coding and medical assistant programs and will provide more modern classrooms for other disciplines.

Calling the Trinity-St. Joseph’s building “less than optimal,” Simone said DCB is working with Trinity Health to identify a better facility for the nursing programs it offers in Minot.

“We are going to have space at the Air Force base for the first time in a very long time,” she added. “They have asked for our LPN program to be delivered on site. And we’re just thrilled to do this.”

Simone said there will be other career and technical programs DCB can offer in the future at the base.

Simone indicated DCB would like to do more in Minot.

“We are looking to launch workforce training here in Minot. We would love to do that through a Train ND partnership,” Simone said. “Part of the mission of a community college is to serve our citizenry with non-credit programming, and Minot is just waiting for that.”

TrainND works with businesses to provide organizational and employee training. It partners with four community colleges in the four quadrants of the state and has regional offices in the state’s four largest cities. DCB has been the only community college without a direct partnership with TrainND.