The latest expansion of Arizona State University in downtown Phoenix was officially unveiled Tuesday in a ceremony at the Westward Ho on Central Ave with the opening of the Collaboratory on Central.
The Collaboratory is a project designed to give medical care and services to the more than 300 low-income residents of the building and train future medical personnel and caretakers studying at ASU.
Several dozen politicians, ASU officials and Westward Ho residents attended the opening ceremony for the Collaboratory, expressing their support of the project and ASU’s involvement in the downtown community.
“This is a wonderful manifestation of our university’s ideals,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “(Where) we are located as an institution is critically important in how we work and how we think and what we focus our energy on.”
The main tenant to take over the first floor of the historic hotel is the ASU College of Public Service and Community Solutions. COPSCS will provide psychological and welfare services to the residents while giving students hands-on experience.
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Students from the College of Nursing and Health Innovation will be able to use the space to practice the skills they learn in the classroom, utilizing them to care for patients in the Collaboratory.
“Many institutions like ours think of themselves as a sequestered place, a place where you go to remove yourself from society,” Crow said. “That’s not our conception of a university. Our conceptualization is a university on the front line.”
Mayor Greg Stanton praised the university for its work in benefiting the downtown Phoenix area.
“Isn’t it great that things are now returning, that we are getting that urbanizing again at such a rapid pace” Stanton said. “This project really represents ASU at it’s best.”
The Collaboratory itself is a 15,000 square-foot space connected to the lobby of the Westward Ho, with both research and service spaces for residents and students to use.
“This is a place for students to come and practice their clinical skills,” said Michaela Denniston, a student at the ASU College of Nursing and Health Innovation. “From a nursing standpoint, when I found out about it, I was like ‘Whoa, this place is awesome.’”
She said the hands-on experience would help her and fellow students develop their skills in a way that others do not get the chance to.
“We get to work with nutrition, we get to work with recreational therapy, we get to do social work, and that’s something that most students don’t get,” Denniston said. “It’s a hands on learning experience that’s helping us professionally, and I can’t wait to use these skills that I’ve learned.”
City and ASU officials said the residents of the Westward Ho should consider the space their own and feel comfortable in it.
“As I came down and got oriented to the downtown campus, and I saw the tenants who lived here, outside the building, it struck me what a terrific opportunity for our university to be embedded and engaged with the people that live here,” said Michael Shafer, a professor at the ASU School of Social Work.
Contact the reporter at ckmccror@asu.edu.
