MGH Institute expands in Navy Yard

(Photo by John Shaw)

(L-R) Rebecca Kaiser from Spaulding Rehabilitation Network; Lois Siegelman, President of the Friends of the Navy Yard; CNC member Dave Whelan; and Boston Police Community Services Sergeant Tom Lema talk at the MGH Institute’s expansion event on January 11.

By Johanna Kaiser, Town Correspondent

MGH Institute of Health Professions has expanded into a fourth building in Charlestown to meet the needs of a growing student body and promote collaboration in the classroom.

The institute, a graduate school founded by Massachusetts General Hospital, has added 21,000 square feet of classrooms, physical therapy labs, and study space at 2 Constitution Center, not far from the school’s main campus in the Charlestown Navy Yard.

The addition comes as the school, which offers degrees in health sciences, has almost doubled in the past seven years to just under 1,200 students.

“This expansion marks an historic event for the Institute,” Janis P. Bellack, the school’s president, told trustees, faculty, staff, students, alumni, neighborhood residents, and Partners HealthCare officials at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the expansion last week.

“Our space now exceeds 100,000 square feet -- a 50 percent increase in the past decade. This additional space offers our students a cutting-edge learning environment, and eases crowding in our main academic building,” Bellack said.

The new space includes an interactive classrooms. Each six-person table has a 42-inch monitor that can display a professor’s lecture material or help students share material from their laptops with their group. The system is designed to encourage students in nursing, physical therapy, and speech-language pathology to work together.

“It’s a commitment by the Institute to ensure our students have the greatest learning resources available,” Dr. George E. Thibault, chairman of the Board of Trustees and president of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, said at the ribbon cutting. “It creates an environment that fosters inter-professional education that will make them better health care professionals.”

The new space also houses two physical therapy labs that have wireless microphone systems, and six cameras linked to large display screens.

The school also hopes to encourage students to work together by adding a new study space and lounge overlooking the USS Constitution.

The new space also includes lounge and study space overlooking the USS Constitution, better known as “Old Ironsides,” designed to encourage student interaction between and after classes.

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Email Kaiser at johanna.yourtown@gmail.com.