Creighton University students are back at school this week and some students are taking classes in a brand new building.
The University's School of Dentistry near 21st and Cuming St. opened for students on Monday.
The new $84 million dollar school is nearly 200,000 square feet. It houses an enhanced clinic, classrooms, research space, simulation laboratories and faculty offices.
In efforts to better serve the community, the facility will also be the home base for the Mutual of Omaha Collaborative Care Office, where the School of Dentistry, Pharmacy and Health Professions, and Medicine and College of Nursing will merge to offer a wide variety of services in one location to patients.
Students will also have more high-tech classrooms where they can teleconference with professors in other parts of the school.
"We actually did that today. We had a whole morning of lectures and orientation and we weren't actually present in the classroom with the teacher, we were just watching from a floor above," said third-year dental student Gorden Hucal.
Dean Mark Latta says the expansion of the school and newest technology will put the University at the leading edge of dental education.
"Embedded in the technology in the building will be more advanced electronic health record keeping, digital radiology, and digital scanning technologies. These are new technologies in dentistry for dental therapies so our patients will be experiencing the most modern ways of treating dental disease and dental treatment that is available in the country," said Dean Latta.
Beyond the physical growth, the class size has grown from 85 to 115 students.
