Ceremonial shovels kicked up dirt on Tuesday morning in Saginaw to mark the start of construction on Central Michigan University's new college of medicine building.
The new facility is part of larger educational and clinical partnership between MyMichigan Health and Covenant Healthcare, who donated $40 million each last year to help make the facility a reality.
Scheduled to open in 2028, the MyMichigan Health CMU Medical Education Building will bring all of CMU’s students enrolled in the Doctor of Medicine program under one roof. The move will give the university opportunity to boost enrollment in the program, according to CMU officials.
CMU’s 90,000 square foot facility is being built on the current MyMichigan Saginaw campus, thanks to a lease agreement between MyMichigan and CMU.
“On rare occasions, deeply transformative changes can occur for a college and a community,” said Dr. Joshua Nosanchuk, dean of the Covenant Healthcare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University, who joined CMU on July 1.
“Building this incredible new center for medical education in Saginaw is one of those occasions.”
Since the medical college opened in 2013, with an inaugural class of 64 students, first- and second-year medical students were based in Mount Pleasant, while third- and fourth-year students would conduct their more advanced, hands-on learning in Saginaw.
“Medical students need clinical placements,” said CMU President Neil MacKinnon, who’s been a part of the effort to move the medical college to Saginaw since he became president on Nov. 1, 2024.
“They need access to patients. And we don't own our own health care system as a university; we are completely reliant. This also strengthens our relationship with these two large health systems.”
CMU’s Board of Trustees have been prioritizing the expansion of programs in the college of medicine for years.
In 2024, CMU announced the launch of a four-year, on-campus Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree program, welcoming 30 students in its first class to campus in January 2025. Officials at the time touted the expansion of the nursing program as a way to meet the growing demand for healthcare professionals in Michigan.
Chair of the CMU Board of Trustees Denise Williams Mallett says expanding CMU's footprint in healthcare has been a priority for years.
“We formed, back in 2022, the healthcare committee, with our hopes of identifying projects that would truly, truly make a difference in the people and the communities in Michigan and especially those that are close to home in the Great Lakes Bay Region.”
Also in 2024, CMU announced its plans to raise $200 million for the medical college’s move to Saginaw to unite the Doctor of Medicine program under one roof. MacKinnon said the university hired an outside fundraising firm to better understand what was feasible to raise. The firm, according to MacKinnon, told CMU officials that raising more than $100 million would be challenging.
“For $100 million, this building is fantastic,” MacKinnon told reporters after the ground-breaking ceremony. "It was a doable budget, and I think we all wanted to make this happen. We didn’t want to such a large goal that this never happened… this building will be beautiful at $100 million.”
CMU currently has 104 students in its Doctor of Medicine program. Officials estimate that the new building will provide them enough space for roughly 130 students. The nursing program, along with several researchers at the college of medicine will remain on the main campus in Mount Pleasant.
But MacKinnon says in two years, when all the medical students move to Saginaw, another opportunity will create itself: more space in the college of medicine’s current Mount Pleasant facilities.
“Which is a great problem to have,” MacKinnon said. “We're in the early stages of planning additional, either expanding current health care programs in the college or actually launching additional programs. And so, I think there'll be more to come once we have that.”
We note WCMU’s broadcast license is held by Central Michigan University. WCMU’s newsroom is editorially independent from CMU, and the university is not involved in writing, editing or reviewing our reports.
