Carl Sandburg College President Seamus Reilly joined Galesburg’s Morning News in the WGIL studio on Friday, Aug. 14, ahead of a big stretch for the Galesburg college: fall semester begins Aug. 24, and a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new Charger Center is set for 4 p.m. Aug. 27 on the Galesburg campus.
The 70,204-square-foot building will house two wood-floor gymnasiums and a third gym with multi-purpose flooring, plus fitness and training areas, a golf simulator room and an esports arena — with room for more than 3,500 people at a time, enough to host regional conferences and expos. Outside, the college is adding turf fields for baseball, softball and soccer. Designed by Legat Architects and expected to open in late 2027, it replaces a gym that’s served the Chargers since 1978.
He talked about:
- What’s going inside the 70,000-square-foot Charger Center, and how a bond issuance is funding it without changing the college’s tax rate
- Why enrollment is up about 7%, and the share of the district’s 108,000 residents Reilly wants Sandburg reaching every year
- Charge Forward, the program that puts adult students in class one night a week and guarantees a degree in two years
- Earn as You Learn, a new grant paying returning adult students up to $4,000 — and the $500 figure that inspired it
- Why roughly 87% of Sandburg instruction is still face-to-face
- The Galesburg and Sampson Promise programs, and why 9 in 10 Sandburg graduates finish without student loan debt
- The 518 Collective, the agriculture technology incubator coming to downtown Galesburg
- What Reilly is proudest of, nine years into the job
Related story: “If you don’t grow, you die”: Sandburg’s president on the college at 60
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