The College of Engineering held a ribbon cutting for the newly renovated Facility for Outreach, Research, Training and Education on Friday, offering tours of UA SafeState’s new facilities.
The acronym FORTE is a nod to the building’s former life as the Tuscaloosa Music Building, before the University acquired the property.
The growing College of Engineering, which currently has about 6,000 students enrolled, saw the building as an opportunity to expand its training facilities in a flexible space.
“We’re always pushing the boundaries of what kinds of classroom space and hands-on space we have available,” said Clifford Henderson, dean of the College of Engineering. “This space gave us additional capacity to hold special kinds of education and training events.”
The building now serves as a training and education facility for the college’s SafeState Consultation Program, offering special class experiences for undergraduate students and training workshops for professionals all over the state.
“We are a group that provides safety and health consultation services to private employers in Alabama,” said Randy Easterling, supervisor for the SafeState program. “We’re essentially a free service that’s there to help industry advance, have a safety culture, be profitable and competitive.”
With classrooms, hands-on laboratories and a high-bay facility for fall protection training, the FORTE building is intended to serve the educational needs of both professionals and students.
“There will be a mixture of student-based learning, but also professionals that need to have OSHA classes, environmental courses or something like that,” said Michael Rasbury, director of environmental programs for SafeState.
At the undergraduate and graduate levels, the college is combining the expertise of the SafeState program with new courses to provide more educational opportunities for students.
“We will continue to expand services outside, but you’ll see more integration and opportunities for students in the University, particularly in engineering,” Henderson said.
Henderson outlined the benefits of the new building, mentioning that shorter training sessions are harder to work into typical classrooms.
“This is a very flexibly scheduled space that helps to do those shorter duration, higher impact kinds of education and training programs,” Henderson said.
