Germanna Celebrates Opening of Stafford County Center
Center will host programs in general education, nursing, cybersecurity, IT, business, and workforce development.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Germanna Community College’s Stafford County Center is officially open for enrollment.
The college held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday morning for the 74,000-square-foot, $20 million center.
The Stafford Center, located off Garrisonville Road, combines two buildings—the Kevin L. Dillard Health Sciences Building and the Barbara J. Fried Building.
The Dillard Health Sciences building has capacity for 400 nursing students, allowing Germanna to double the size of its nursing program, according to a press release from the college. Lack of training space is one of the factors contributing to the nursing shortage, according to a 2022 review published in the National Library of Medicine.
The Stafford Center will also offer cybersecurity, business, IT, and workforce development programs, as well as general education classes.
Germanna acquired the buildings on Center Street off Garrisonville Road in 2022, and renovations, carried out by the college’s facilities team and Dario Construction, began in 2023.
A host of community organizations and individuals came together with funding, advocacy, and planning to make the Stafford Center happen, including the Stafford Economic Development Authority, the Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region, Mary Washington Healthcare, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors, Shore United Bank, Dario Construction, and architect John Berger, and Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, who secured federal support.
Donations from Mary Jane O’Neill, Rhonda and Adam Fried, and Kevin Dillard were “instrumental in bringing this vision to life, according to a press release from Germanna.
Germanna faculty and staff; members of the Germanna College Board, the Stafford Board of Supervisors and School Board; representatives from the Virginia Community College System and the offices of Senators Kaine and Warner and Congressman Eugene Vindman; Mary Washington Healthcare staff; currently enrolled students; and community members attended Thursday’s ribbon cutting.
“Thanks to our tremendous community support, we’re going to explode here in Stafford County,” said Janet Gullickson, Germanna Community College president. “We’re going to make something here. We’re going to change the lives of everyone in our community. I can’t tell you how proud I am that we came together as a community and did this.”
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