Members of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees Friday approved a $34 million bond issue for UALR that will generate $31.6 million for capital projects over the next three years.

The funds will provide new construction and renovation of a student services one-stop center, much-needed space for burgeoning nursing and health sciences programs, and keep the Arkansas Nanotechnology Center at UALR on the leading edge of research breakthroughs.

The approval will mean:

• Consolidating all student service operations into one convenient location and by expanding the Donaghey Student Center. The plan is to add three floors to the DSC or build an annex to it.
• Creating a new $9 million nanotechnology building, increasing UALR’s reach in the field that could impact the economy in coming years just as the computer did in the last half of the 20^th century.
• Converting the existing Administration South building into a new center for the Departments of Nursing and Health Sciences. In the past five years, nursing enrollment has grown from 289 majors to 520. The new center will provide a state-of-the-art Hospital Simulation Lab where students practice clinical skills using computer-controlled patient simulators.

“Some say nanotechnology is going to be as big as the computer in terms of its impact on the economy,” Chancellor JoeI E. Anderson told UA trustees. “The difference is Arkansas was not a player when computers appeared. Today, Arkansas is a player in the field of nanotechnology.”

Approval for the new building comes four years after the Arkansas General Assembly allocated $5.9 million to establish the Arkansas Nanotechnology Center at UALR as a cutting-edge lab designed to produce significant nanotechnology research.

Since then, UALR’s nanotechnology program has produced research that has resulted in 23 patent applications and is beginning to produce fledgling companies that will market the research when appropriate.   Recently UALR and UAMS have collaborated on research that employs nanotubes to track and destroy cancer cells.