THE UST General Santos City (GenSan) Main Building, the first edifice in the Mindanao campus, is set to be inaugurated on April 11, according to the Facilities and Management Office (FMO).
FMO Director Fr. Dexter Austria, O.P. told the Varsitarian that the structure was in its final stages of construction and was expected to be completed in time for the inauguration.
“We are finalizing the architectural finishes of the building, clearing the site of any construction debris, and waiting for the final count of the attendees,” Austria said.
The inauguration of the UST GenSan Main Building will coincide with UST’s founding month in April.
The edifice can accommodate up to 5,000 students. It has 77 classrooms, 25 laboratories, a 100-person capacity chapel, a 65-person capacity cafeteria, a library, a clinic, student organization rooms, a 300-person capacity auditorium, and three function halls.
It will house the first four units to be offered on the Mindanao campus: the School of Business and Accountancy, the School of Health Sciences, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Technology.
Austria said the campus was expected to accommodate 500 students in its first year, with two sections per program.
The campus is scheduled to welcome students in Academic Year 2024 to 2025. However, the final list of programs to be offered is still pending approval from the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
The next structure to rise at the 76.78-hectare Mindanao campus is the UST-Dr. Ricardo S. Po, Sr. Integrated Innovation and Research Laboratories.
The building, which will house the science programs of UST GenSan, is expected to break ground in the last week of April.
UST GenSan’s gates first opened in January when aspiring senior high school and college students trooped to the campus to take the UST Entrance Test.
