The vice president of the USF Polytechnic (USFP) campus in Lakeland is hoping a new campus site will attract the “multitasking millennial” generation.

Marshall Goodman, vice president and campus executive officer of USFP, said he wants the new campus, which will be located at Interstate 4 and the Polk Parkway, to focus on multidisciplinary studies.

“We want students who want applied learning,” Goodman said. “If you’re the type of student who wants to go in a lecture hall … open up your newspaper and read it while the (professor) is talking, we are not the university for you.”

Students are no longer focusing on one aspect of their major, but branching out to learn other things related to their desired careers, Goodman said. He said he wants USFP to be known for
its hands-on, project-based work and research for students.

Goodman presented a Strategic Plan Update to the USF Board of Trustees (BOT) on Tuesday, detailing the plans for the new site.

USF President Judy Genshaft attended the presentation.

“We have a world-famous architect who is going to be designing this master plan for us. It is very exciting to have a campus that will be memorable in the United States and around the world,” Genshaft said.

Following Goodman’s presentation, international architect Santiago Calatrava unveiled his vision for USFP: a city.

“I see this university as a city, a science city where people go not only to learn, but also to work, to create new technologies, new techniques,” said Calatrava, who is known for designing several polytechnic universities in Europe.

Goodman said Calatrava’s next assignment is to design the first campus facility, a science and technology building.

“One of the most noble things that a man can do is dedicate his life to education,” Calatrava said. “To work as an architect for education is one of the most exciting things, but also one of the most challenging things.”

The building will include classrooms, laboratories, faculty offices and a student center, Goodman said.

According to the USFP Strategic Plan Update, the building will cost approximately $62 million.

Subject to the BOT approval, construction of the building will begin in fall 2010 and is expected to be completed by summer 2012. Upon completion, a portion of the current USFP students will move to the new campus site.

USFP is doing the master planning to decide where the buildings will be located on the new campus site, and that plan will then go before the BOT committees for discussion, Goodman said.