Chaminade Julienne to begin construction on $4 million STEMM Center

Credit: Lisa Powell

Credit: Lisa Powell

Chaminade Julienne Catholic High School will start construction next week on a nearly $4 million renovation that will turn 11 second-floor classrooms into a new STEMM Center that will open in August.

CJ President Dan Meixner announced Wednesday that work at the 505 S. Ludlow St. high school can proceed immediately thanks to the generous gifts of nearly 30 individuals.

“It’s the most significant renovation to our spaces in 50 years,” Meixner said, noting the center will serve all students at the downtown high school.

STEMM stands for science, technology, engineering, math and medicine education. STEM education has become a major focus of today’s high-tech, high-skill global economy, and there is growing emphasis on it in the Dayton area and across Ohio.

The state-of-the-art center will support and enhance the school’s Project Lead the Way curriculum for engineering and biomedical sciences for which CJ was the first Catholic high school in the nation to earn dual certification in 2011. The high school began offering the program five years ago.

The four-year program gives students the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school.

The new 17,700-square-foot center will feature science, engineering, math, biology, chemistry, physics, STEMM and research labs and classrooms.

“This is a very big step,” Deacon Jim Walworth, the director of development, told more than 50 people, including students, who gathered for the announcement.

Junior Zach Thomas, 16, a third-year student in the STEMM program, said afterward he is excited about the opportunity to use the center as a senior next year. Thomas said he is considering the possibility of pursuing a college degree in engineering.

“It’s something that interests me and there is definitely a need today,” he said.

Principal John Marshall, joined Science Department co-chairs Amanda Ooten and Amy O’Loughlin in swinging sledge hammers against an interior wall to symbolically start the project.

CJ serves about 635 students and draws families from more than 50 ZIP codes. The school has been in its location for 126 years though the existing buildings were built in the 1950s and 1960s. The school is jointly owned and sponsored by the Marianists and the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

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