Due to a cramped campus, the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine will be adding a new building to offer additional space for students and staff. The new building will include a library, offices and study rooms.  

Jeff Harris, the chief information officer and assistant vice president of administration at BCOM, said that the project has a budget of about $2 million and will increase the Burrell campus to 9.2 acres. 

“We will be putting in a new library and small office complex. It’s going to be a 10,500 square foot building,” Harris said. “When the new library building is complete, the Burrell campus will occupy approximately 9.2 acres in the NMSU Arrowhead Research Park. The total project cost, including the new building and renovations to the current Burrell campus, is approximately $2 million.” 

According to Dean Bill Pieratt, this expansion is a positive look into the future of BCOM and continues the journey of a new school to an established institution. 

“I am excited to be part of Burrell College’s transition from a new school to an established one looking to grow and advance its mission. As we do so, expanding our student support services means additional space for our Offices of Student Affairs and Clinical Education, as well as Library Services, all of which is to be housed in the additional space the new building will provide,” Pieratt said. 

The new building will be home to both the BCOM student affairs department and the clinical education department.   

“We’re taking two of our departments and moving them over here.  We have our Student Affairs department, which is sort of responsible for the care and feeding of our students, making sure that they are happy, healthy, and ready to learn.  We’re also going to move our clinical education department,” Harris said. “We felt that those two groups would be very synergistic out here and they’re now in a library space where we have tutoring and services like that, so we thought it was a nice mix to get those groups out.”  

Sarah White, a second-year student at BCOM and vice president of the Student Government Association Executive Board, said she is excited about BCOM’s expansion and ready progression. 

“It’s been very cool to watch the growth of this school and kind of see how much they’re taking things in stride, especially because things are changing a lot with the medical school admissions process, with getting residency programs, things are changing constantly,” White said.  

BCOM has a history of moving fast and this expansion project is no exception, Harris noted.  

“Our goal is to open this in July of 2022 so our class of 2026 will be the first class that will start to take advantage of this. Our overall timeline is that we’re hoping to have construction of this new building done by Jan of 2022,” Harris said. “It’s a very aggressive timeline, and it’s what keeps me up at night. Burrell has a history of doing things very, very fast.”