With The College of New Rochelle’s Centennial year now concluded, we turn our attention to the next century and greet new challenges and opportunities for the College. Perhaps the most exciting challenge we face is how to once again refine our educational vision, looking to our strengths to create a new way of teaching and learning about health and wellness – major issues affecting society and each of us individually.

In contemplating how best to achieve this, we have developed plans and programs which comprise a new Center for Wellness to serve our students, faculty, and the greater campus community. Through the construction of a Center for Wellness, CNR will reframe the approach to health and well-being, bring that knowledge into the community, and have a vital impact on the healthcare crisis in America.

A modern, state-of-the-art building, housing School of Nursing programs, Health Services, Physical Education, and Intercollegiate Athletics in a single structure, will keep the College competitive in its next century, and it will embrace and enhance the mind, body, and spirit of the CNR Community. In developing plans for this new building, we began, as popular vernacular has it, to “think outside the box” and envision a building that would accommodate an expanded curriculum, as well as an increase in College enrollment that now approaches 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Several years ago the CNR academic community began a vital dialogue about what should replace the previous Sports Building. Their vision will result in one of the most significant buildings in the storied history of The College of New Rochelle.

To design such a structure we turned to the architects who masterfully restored Mother Irene Gill Library.  We asked them to combine the best thinking from the CNR Community with their own creative skills to design a structure that will blend with the College’s traditional collegiate gothic architecture and the residential neighborhood of New Rochelle, and will be environmentally friendly in terms of materials used.     

The building will be over 60,000 square feet, making it one of the largest buildings on the New Rochelle Campus.  It will have two major interior spaces: a gymnasium that will seat 1,500 and a competition auditorium over the swimming pool that will seat 100 spectators.  Additionally, there will be a fitness and weight room and an aerobics and dance studio as well as health services and athletic offices, multipurpose classrooms, and a holistic meditation room.  Outside, on the landscaped acreage surrounding the Center, will be a contemplation garden.

As I have often said, The College of New Rochelle is a “sacred” place, an institution of higher learning committed to the development of the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. There is a great synchronicity on our campus that encompasses the physical reflections of mind, body, and spirit in Gill Library, the new Wellness Center and Holy Family Chapel, respectively.   

Our responsibility is to carry forward into a second century the dream of our Ursuline foundresses and the mission of this institution. We continue to invest in and develop the richness of this academic community as we begin another exciting chapter in the life of this College,  entering a new century of growth, wisdom and wellness for life. 
 
With you, I am eagerly looking forward to the completion of this magnificent Wellness Center that will enhance our beautiful campus and be the focal point for cutting edge innovative programs of wellness education.

Thank you.

Stephen J. Sweeny, Ph.D.
President
The College of New Rochelle