Illustration provided by Michigan Tech. An artist rendering of the proposed Chang K. Park Center for Student Wellness at Michigan Tech. The University's Board of Trustees approved construction of the center at its meeting Friday.

HOUGHTON – Michigan Tech announced Friday plans for the Chang K. Park Center for Student Wellness, a facility that will expand holistic student care on campus. The University says the new center will bring together key student support services, currently distributed across more than 30 locations, into one integrated, accessible space.

MTU will move forward with the construction of the approximately 90,000-square-foot wellness facility, made possible by a $55 million gift from alumnus and philanthropist Chang K. Park ’73. At an event Friday to announce the new center, the University said it is the largest gift in the University’s history. Creation of the center was approved by the MTU Board of Trustees earlier in the day at its regular meeting.

Michigan Tech President Rick Koubek said the project is fully funded by private philanthropy. “As part of the campaign that we’ve been working toward, Mr. Park was on the committee, and he saw the donations that were coming through and he also wanted to be able to help,” he said. Additionally, Koubek said Park wanted to motivate others to continue to contribute to Michigan Tech on a new level. Discussions on the project began with Park in 2024.

Laura Bulleit, vice president of student affairs, said there is a strong need for this type of student wellness center and there has been for several years. She said students today are increasingly wellness-minded and more likely to seek help, whether for mental health, physical health or both.

“But it’s not just a need,” Bulleit said. “It’s a want from our students for a facility that helps them be the best student that they can be and prepares them for the future.”

Bulleit said one of the things Michigan Tech focuses on most significantly is the success of the students, not just in the classroom, but personally and professionally. “So by helping the student with the holistic wellness needs – that’s their mental health, their physical health, their emotional health, their overall well-being – we are preparing them to enter the workforce and be really strong professionals and be healthy and just really realize that success.”

“It so fits into the overall – really the overall strategy of the organization to, to care for students,” said Jon Jipping, chair of the Tech, Board of Trustees. “A tremendous amount of work was done to bring the details to come to today where we could approve a project that’s buildable.”

Currently, there are approximately 30 services scattered across campus, said Bulleit, which are all coming together. She said the number of classrooms that have been used to deliver the services, along the offices for the clinical counseling staff, as well for Michigan Tech’s health promotion staff, are scattered.

“And then right now we really don’t have a place here physically in the middle of campus devoted to physical health,” she said. “So whether physical health is medical services that they need or a place to work out, you know, our students are going so many different places for that so having a central location is really going to be important.”

The building will be located between the Memorial Union and the Administration buildings.

Koubek said the hope is break ground in the spring of 2026 and to have it open in the summer of 2028.