House speaker visits campus

North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) visited UNC Charlotte on Friday, Aug. 2, where he highlighted the $45 million in the legislative-passed budget for the renovations of the Burson and Cameron buildings.

Moore was joined by a great showing of legislative leaders including Reps. Jason Saine ’95, Dean Arp ’99, John Torbett, Craig Horn and Linda Johnson and Sen. Dan Bishop.

UNC Charlotte Board of Trustee member Teross Young ’93 and Provost Joan Lorden welcomed Moore to campus. Along with Bernadette Donovan-Merkert, chair of chemistry, and Jon Varnell, associate vice chancellor for facilities management, Speaker Moore and the legislators heard about the importance of renovating the Burson and Cameron buildings to increase lab and classroom space for fast-growing fields including STEM, computing and informatics, engineering and other physical sciences.

The group also visited the site of the new $90 million science building currently under construction, funded by the Connect NC bond passed during Moore’s first term as speaker of the North Carolina House in 2016. The building, scheduled to open in 2021, will have 130,000 square feet of flexible classroom and laboratory space.

Editor’s note: Gov. Roy Cooper visited UNC Charlotte in March promoting his budget proposals.