Time Capsule Ceremony Commemorates New HCC Health Sciences Building

At the new Howard Community College Heath Sciences Building on Wednesday afternoon members of the HCC health sciences community came together to entomb mementos of modern health care in a time capsule that will be sealed for 50 years inside the building.

The building is scheduled to officially open in January, but it's an HCC tradition to create a time capsule in new buildings, according to Dr. Georgene Butler, who emceed the ceremony.

Nursing students wearing lab coats, radiologists, dental students, professors and administrators gathered  to watch objects like a pedomoeter, textbooks, a photo album, gastronomy tubes, and a November 2012 copy of the HCC Times dropped crate by crate into the time capsule. Each division of the health sciences department contributed a crate filled with modern technologies from its field.

Butler said the time capsule will be opened in 2062.

"I think I should be 106," said Butler, "I plan to be there."

HCC broke ground on the new building on Jan. 24, 2011. The 113,000 square foot, $50 million building will house programs such as exercise science, nursing, public health, radiologic technology and life fitness.

Half of the funding for the building came from Howard County, with the other 50 percent coming from the state.