Expansion ‘Exciting’ First Step in FranU’s Future

Once considered a best kept secret in Baton Rouge, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University is on the verge of taking its rightful place as an educational giant. 

FranU’s coming out party was the recent announcement of the construction of St. Francis Hall, a 75,000-square-foot, three-story building dedicated to better accommodate student learning and development at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

St. Francis Hall is what FranU President Dr. Tina Holland fondly describes as the “front door” to what will ultimately become a more traditional campus that is scheduled to include six independent buildings situated in the shadows of the adjacent Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center. She said the buildings will either be new construction or repurposed medical buildings that surround the sprawling medical center.

“This is to let the community know we are no ivory tower,” said Holland, whose energy and love for FranU has driven the university to unparalleled heights. 

“We serve the community,” she said. “Catholic education is about service to the church, it’s about this is a ministry, look at what the church is doing. 

“It’s also a means of evangelizing, to get people to realize the church is doing important stuff.”

The announcement of St. Francis Hall concluded a lengthy process determining where FranU, formerly known as Our Lady of the Lake College, would ultimately be located. Founded by the Franciscan Sisters a century ago, classes were originally held in downtown Baton Rouge, near the first OLOL hospital.

But when the hospital moved to its current Essen Lane location in 1978, the school shifted as well. Classes are currently held in buildings that once housed medical offices and were not designed as classrooms.

“It’s remarkable over the years what this institution has been able to accomplish given the incredibly modest facilities we are in,” Holland said. “You get inside those buildings and you see what is happening, you see the state-of-the-art equipment, which of course we acquired with our own labor at winning grant funds, through hard work of the faculty. 

“(St. Francis Hall)  will be the first true university building in its history.”

During the past several years university officials have explored a number of potential sites for a more traditional campus. Holland admittedly had a bias toward the mid-city area, not only to jumpstart a sputtering  north Baton Rouge economy but also to be close to St. Clare Manor, another Franciscan Health System facility, for intergenerational learning.

Turns out, the present is the future.

Holland said for a number of reasons the most cost-effective process, including financing, is to stay at its current site, where the land is owned by the Franciscan Sisters. Rather than paying rent that totals more than $2.5 million annually, FranU will be able to finance a new campus, albeit in phases.

Holland said the board had the freedom and responsibility to take that course of action.

“It’s really understanding their leadership,” she said of the board, praising its vision.”

Holland noted the university, which has never owned any property and did not have any credit, is borrowing money through the Franciscan Health System through its bonding.

“That is one thing the board really wanted to get through that this is not (OLOL) building this for us,” she said. “This is the university building being built and financed by the university. It’s the first true university building, the first education facility built for education in its history, and it has been in existence for 100 years. 

“It’s really exciting.”

Among its many amenities, the new building will feature a two-story simulation hospital. One story will be dedicated to outpatient simulation and other to inpatient simulation.

“We already have the only simulation hospital of its kind and the new one will be about five times larger,” Holland proudly boasted. “Anything that you would find being used in both hospital and ambulatory health care will be simulated.

“It is absolutely remarkable.”

The new building is scheduled to be completed by January 2023 and is the first step in the planned new campus that will feature more usable square footage on a significantly smaller footprint. 

Holland said the original plan called for offering students on-campus housingbut the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic scrapped that plan. However, Holland was quick to point out FranU did quite well this past year when other institutions struggled because “students came to us wanting to make a difference in health care because of COVID.”

“And they were not interested in the bells and whistles,” she said. “As a result we get a different kind of student, more serious students. Football is not really on their list of interests when they come to us.”

Beginning with St. Francis Hall, the campus will have a strong Catholic identity, including the university’s first true chapel featuring a three-story ceiling.  

The showpiece will be an enormous San Damiano cross visible from outside through the chapel’s large glass windows. 

“You have to make sure you have every outward sign of your Catholicity and Franciscan roots that you can possibly build into the architecture,” Holland said. “You don’t want to look like LSU Health Sciences, you don’t want to look like any other health care specialty center.” 

Holland emphasized the importance of Catholic health care, adding that the  only way the tradition of the Franciscans is carried on is through education.

“God knows where we would be without Catholic health care,” Holland said. “We are teaching our students what it means to be Franciscan through the program regardless of what their circumstances are.”

“Every student that comes through here hears from me directly what the meaning of a Franciscan institution is, who the sisters are, why it’s important to know who they are, why it’s their obligation as students to learn what a Franciscan education means.”

Holland emphasized FranU is critical for quality work force development, saying the university turns out potential employees who are skilled professionals but also people with a sense of citizenship, integrated thinkers and well-rounded in development of formation.

The university is not renewing its lease with the Catholic Life Center for classroom space, as it did for the spring semester, but said future partnerships, especially for office space, are possible. 

“(The Diocese of Baton Rouge) are great partners to work with,” Holland said. 

For now, Holland has not allowed herself the luxury of reflecting on how far the university has excelled  in the past few years. Rather she is grateful, and said gratitude begets joy.

“And when you think about it, you thank God for the sacrifice of the cross,” she said. “Now,  we have to hold the San Damiano cross high and say, ‘This is for you God, and thanks so much for this cross.’ ” 

Groundbreaking for St. Francis Hall is scheduled later this summer.