A record construction boom under way at Coastal Carolina University will add 30 percent more building space at the school's main campus in Conway. With four major buildings under construction, the university is adding 232,000 square feet of new building space at a cost of more than $31 million.

"These new buildings will help enable us to provide students with premier environments for both living and learning," said Coastal President Ronald R. Ingle. "Coastal is a growing institution with ambitious goals, and our physical facilities must be state-of-the-art in order to offer our students, faculty and the community at large a truly first-rate educational and cultural center."

Under construction are a major academic building, a residence hall/dining facility, a student health center and a welcome center. The average cost for the present construction is $135 per square-foot, according to Stan Godshall, Coastal's vice president of budget and facilities management.

- The Humanities and Fine Arts Building, which will be the single largest building on campus, will occupy 110,000 square feet. The two- story facility, which will include classrooms, labs and faculty offices, will also house an art gallery, "black box" theater and recital hall. The facility will also feature a unique open courtyard in the center of the building. Projected completion date is July 2001 at a cost of approximately $16.4 million.

- Santee Residence Hall will occupy more than 82,000 square feet and will include 352 beds, increasing the school's on-campus residency by 35 percent. The main feature of the building is 33 quad-rooms, which allow four individual bedrooms to a suite. The facility will also include a student computer work center with Internet access. More than 3,000 square feet have been designated for the expansion of The Commons dining facility, located adjacent to Santee Hall. Projected completion date for the residence hall and dining facility is July 2000 at a cost of approximately $10.3 million.

- Coastal's Official Welcome Center will include approximately 18,000 square feet and house a reception area and the campus bookstore. The second floor, which will occupy another 12,000 square feet, will serve as the new home of the Division of Extended Learning and Public Services. Projected completion date for the first floor is December 2000 at a cost of approximately $3.5 million.

- The Student Health Center will be located in Conway Hospital's 9,200 square-foot Occupational Health Center, which is being built on Coastal's campus. The student health center will provide health care and counseling services for Coastal students. Projected completion date is December 2000 at a cost of approximately $900,000.

CCU Construction Quick Facts

- Number of buildings: 4 - Total cost: $31.1 million - Total square footage: 232,000 - Average cost: $135 per square-foot - Increase in building square footage on campus: 30 percent

Humanities and Fine Arts Building - Poured concrete: 3,500 cubic yards - Steel: 753 tons - Concrete blocks: 200,000 - Bricks: 600,000 " 101 "MAY 22, 2000 - FORMER CHANCELLOR ESTABLISHES SCHOLARSHIPS, SPEAKERS PROGRAM" " Fred W. Hicks III, former chancellor and professor emeritus of history at Coastal Carolina University, has established an endowment of $100,000 to provide four undergraduate scholarships in the E. Craig Wall Sr. School of Business Administration.

Three of the four scholarships have been established:

- The Fred W. Hicks III Scholarship in Finance will award a minimum of $1,000 to an outstanding junior class woman student majoring in finance.

- The Fred W. Hicks III Scholarship in Global Finance will award a minimum of $1,000 to an outstanding student in the junior class majoring in finance who has demonstrated interest in global financial issues.

- The Fred W. Hicks III Scholarship in Technology and Finance will award a minimum of $1,000 to an outstanding junior majoring in finance who has demonstrated a strong interest in information technology.

The first three scholarship recipients will be announced at the 2001 Honors Convocation in April 2001. Recipients will be selected by Coastal accounting, finance and economics faculty. Scholarship awards will be made annually from the interest produced by the endowed funds.< p> The fourth scholarship, the Fred W. Hicks III Scholarship in Investments and Portfolio Management, will be established in fall 2001.

Hicks has also established the Fred W. Hicks IV and Sara L. Hicks Speakers Series, named for his children. Created by a $5,000 gift to Coastal's Honors Program, the series will feature two public lectures given by distinguished speakers during the 2000-2001 academic year. The speakers will be chosen based on their academic, professional or artistic credentials by a committee of faculty and students representing the Honors Program. The primary goal of the speakers series is to deepen the academic experience of Coastal's Honors students and the university's academic community, according to Hicks. Planning for the Honors Program at Coastal was begun during Hicks' term as chancellor.

Additionally, Hicks has made an $8,100 gift to Coastal's Department of Psychology for the purchase of a computerized biofeedback system. The state-of-the-art research tool will provide important new opportunities for student and faculty research at Coastal, according to Joan Piroch, chair of Coastal's Department of Psychology and Sociology.

"The device will open a lot of doors for new research on campus because it performs a variety of tests simultaneously and allows for computer interface," said Piroch. The system records a number of physiological signals such as heart rate, muscle tension, brain activity, lung capacity and skin conductivity.

Hicks joined Coastal in 1983 as chancellor and became a full-time professor of history in 1985. He served as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow to India in 1988 and a Fulbright-Hays lecturer and consultant to the Minister of Education of Cyprus from 1990 to 1995.