The Universities at Shady Grove, part of the University System of Maryland, has started building a Biomedical Sciences and Engineering Education Facility to train university students from around the state for in-demand STEM-related jobs in healthcare, biosciences, engineering and computational sciences.
The $36.7 million, state-funded facility will open in 2019 on the Rockville campus, allowing research universities such as the University of Maryland, Baltimore, University of Maryland, College Park, and UMBC to offer undergraduate and graduate degree courses. Shady Grove will boost its student capacity to 7,500 from the current 4,000. The new building will include teaching laboratories, collaborative learning spaces, clinical training facility and academic offices.
"Universities at Shady Grove is setting a new standard in high-quality higher education that directly meets Maryland's unique workforce development needs," Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement.
Maryland leads the nation in academic research and development and has the third highest concentration of high-tech businesses in the nation, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. But in Montgomery County alone, the growth of highly skilled jobs has outpaced available candidates, and nearly 117,000 new workers will be needed by next year for new or vacated positions.
The Universities at Shady Grove is a partner campus of nine Maryland public universities.