GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A special groundbreaking ceremony marked the start of a new library on the UW-Green Bay campus.
Members of the First Nations community and UW-Green Bay celebrated the beginning of the Cofrin Technology and Education Center (CTEC) construction in an Earth Honoring Thursday.
The Earth Honoring intends to bring all people together to honor the Earth as well as the plants and animals that live on the land where the CTEC will be constructed.
Last year, the green light was given to replace the 52-year-old, eight-story Cofrin Library at UW-Green Bay with a five-story, $101 million replacement, drastically changing the campus landscape.
The Cofrin Technology and Education Center is slated to be completed by spring 2027. Once finished, the current Cofrin Library will be torn down.
“It was an amazing idea that you put a library at the center of a campus. You had spokes come out of that library and everyone met at the library to learn together and that’s what made the University interdisciplinary,” said UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander at Thursday’s event. “Unfortunately, you don’t find a ton of students browsing seven floors of books. It’s just not how they learn anymore.”
The new building will sit between the Weidner Center and Rose Hall.
According to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman, the new library will be about 30% smaller than the current Cofrin Library, which opened in 1972.
“It will be home to a vast number of new opportunities for our students,” said Rothman at the event. “It’s not the square footage, it is the people and what is happening in those buildings that make it happen.”
UW-Green Bay says the Phoenix Statue which sits outside the current Cofrin Library, will be moved over to the Kress Events Center.
The Menominee Nation and the Ho-Chunk Nation are the original inhabitants of the region where UW-Green Bay now resides. Thus, Menominee Elder (Napos) and Ho-Chunk Elder (Ritchie Brown) will open the event with words of recognition for the Earth and the natural world. The Wisconsin Dells drum group (Ho-Chunk Nation) will offer honor songs for the Earth and all present.
