The old business success adage of “location, location, location” takes on new meaning at Northern Kentucky University with planned development of the growing, dynamic Highland Heights campus.
A 14-acre site at U.S. 27, owned by the Northern Kentucky University Foundation, has quick access to Interstates 471, 71 and 75; downtown Cincinnati; and the Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati International Airport.
The site, at the mouth of NKU, is planned as a mixed-use development that will be anchored by a hotel, restaurants and office space. "It will also accommodate custom, stand alone office space for larger companies," said Karen Zerhusen Kruer, Executive Director of the NKU Foundation.
“If someone is interested in occupying a whole building, we can accommodate their needs as well,” she said.
The office development is planned to have a walkable, campus-like feel, and will be close to the Bank of Kentucky Center at NKU, which has modern conference space.
“We will be presenting a front door to the University that is inviting and attractive to people coming through that thoroughfare. It’s a prestigious location that gives us access to prominent faculty and researchers,” Zerhusen Kruer said.
But the value of this prime location isn’t just in the land or in the infrastructure; it’s also in the high-tech workforce NKU is developing at the planned Griffin Hall, housing the University’s College of Informatics.
The state-of-the-art center, scheduled for completion in May 2001, seeks to combine technology, available data and real-world application to a wide variety of occupations. NKU’s College of Informatics, the only such college in the state, was created by an act of the Kentucky Legislature. In the fall of 2006, 1,057 entered the college under various disciplines.
In addition to new offerings like informatics, the college puts a number of NKU’s existing disciplines under one roof. It includes four departments: Business, Communication, Computer Science and Infrastructure Management, while also housing diverse disciplines such as health care, computer information technology, business, enterprise resource planning, and research development design.
“NKU is preparing and providing a skilled niche workforce in the informatics arena,” said Karen Finan, Sr. Vice President at Northern Kentucky Tri-ED. “This workforce will be there to support companies in Northern Kentucky and the surrounding CMSA through cutting edge technology.”
NKU's College of Informatics is one of less than a dozen such colleges dedicated specifically to informatics study in the United States.
“Our focus is very applied. It touches on the issue of applying real-world research to business, which makes a difference with workforce development,” said Dr. Gary Ozanich, Director of Strategic Advancement at NKU’s College of Informatics.
Among the most exciting fields this opens for NKU is in the area of health care informatics. Griffin Hall will be on the ground floor of a state goal to create a statewide e-health network to improve health care efficiency and quality through utilizing this type of technology.
In addition, the federal government has mandated a national health infrastructure which would include e-health records, be in place by 2014. And estimates show at least 200,000 new workers will be needed to meet this goal, and workers will need to maintain, upgrade, and assist clinical staff in effectively using the systems.
“We have an opportunity in this region to be on the leading edge in establishing a highly skilled workforce. The tri-state region is one of the leading regions right now in health information technology, and we are likely to be the first interconnected region of the nation,” said Dr. Ozanich.
Dean of the College of Informatics Dr. Douglas Perry added, “We’ll have revolutionary technology here. Either it will be rare or non-existent anywhere else in the region. This is a building, from the ground up, that will feature ultra high-tech digital application, training, research, development, and service.”
The 110,000-square-foot Griffin Hall is made up of a central Informatics Common and “digitorium,” flanked on two sides by four-story loft-style academic buildings. This space will house a "genius bar" complete with a multi-discipline technology help desk, research flex space, and café.
Within the common is the two-story glass digitorium, the fully reconfigurable technological heart equipped with audio/visual technology using high-quality LED, digital projection, and intelligent digital displays that allow users to watch, interact with, create, and share information.
All of these high-tech tools will not only be available to students, but to the business community as well. And one of the mostly highly anticipated is the planned Computer Assisted Virtual Environment program, or CAVE.
“Anyone from a landscape architect, to an engineer, product developer or marketing firm can use this. If you can imagine it, you can create it inside a CAVE,” Dr. Ozanich said. “CAVE exists privately in Cincinnati, but is not open to the public. It’s used by corporations for their own research, but we’ll make it available on a contract basis for a business.”
"This all adds up to well-trained students who have real-life business experience. And if the past holds true, the students will stay once they graduate, because 85 percent of NKU undergrads stay in the region," Perry said.
Sources: Dr. Gary Ozanich, Director of Strategic Advancement at NKU’s College of Informatics; Dean of the College of Informatics, Dr. Douglas Perry; and Karen Zerhusen Kruer, Executive Director of the NKU Foundation