Work gets underway for new NDSCS Career Innovation Center

By Andrew Weeks

With strong support from the business and education community, the North Dakota State College of Science Alumni Foundation has started work on a project that was first considered about seven years ago.

Construction of the NDSCS Career Innovation Center, a $20 million project that aims to boost the workforce needs of the region, got underway in early July.

Located along 64th Ave. S. in Fargo, the center will open either in late 2022 or early 2023, according to school President Dr. John Richman. The roughly 58,000 square-foot facility will house academic clusters in the areas of agriculture, arts and communication, business, construction, engineering, health science, information technology, manufacturing, and transportation.

Richman said the center is beneficial for NDSCS students, but also will serve a variety of other “learners” in the area, including those in grade school.

“The way I describe it is, it’s one facility, one lab space, one set of equipment that is going to be utilized by a lot of different populations,” Richman said.

“Elementary students will be able to come to the facility to have career day, then as junior high age students they can come back to the facility to do career exploration, and that career exploration would be a hands-on type project. Then, as a sophomore in high school in North Dakota, they can begin to take post-secondary or dual-credit courses. Those students that have identified a career