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Marist School Opens New Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design and Celebrates Expansion of Wooldridge Center

At the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year, Marist School opened the new Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design as the centerpiece of the school’s groundbreaking STEAM 2.0 initiative, which aims to help students build empathy.
The Goizueta Center features spaces for students to explore STEAM subjects such as Robotics, Engineering, 3D Design and Printing, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Immersive Media and Media Studies, Podcasting, Broadcasting, Documentary Filmmaking, and Music Technology. A leading-edge makerspace, the new Goizueta Center was funded by a grant from The Goizueta Foundation and was created during summer 2020 through a complete renovation of the bottom floor of Wooldridge Center, a centrally located building on Marist’s campus that also houses the school’s library.
 
The Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design and Marist’s STEAM 2.0 initiative will help increase students’ capacity for empathy by providing opportunities to examine the intersection between STEAM departments (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) and Global and Humane Studies, those areas of learning that focus on the world in which we live and how individuals can make a positive impact through service to others. The overarching goal of STEAM 2.0 directly aligns with the school’s Strategic Plan 2025, which calls for Marist to build upon its legacy of excellence by providing a world-class education that prepares students to lead and serve with compassion, integrity, and a sense of purpose.
 
Marist School President Fr. Bill Rowland, S.M. said, “The Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design provides our students with new tools with which to serve the world in the name of Christ. Our Catholic faith and the gentle, humble, and merciful spirit of the patroness of our school will be reflected in the content students produce in the space, and the empathy they learn will help them make the world a better place.”
 
Marist School Principal Kevin Mullally added, “The Goizueta Center offers great potential for our students to learn and grow, creating possibilities for the development of new courses and student experiences which will help our students develop as leaders ready to work creatively and collaboratively to serve those in need. Through The Goizueta Foundation’s support of STEAM 2.0, we will provide ongoing professional development for our faculty to maximize the potential of the new Goizueta Center and nurture innovative teaching techniques for the benefit of our students.”
 
The renovations required for the creation of the Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design allowed Marist the opportunity to further enhance Wooldridge Center by building an addition that includes a new admissions office as well as classrooms and collaborative spaces, a student activities and leadership hub, and a student exhibit gallery.
 
On September 13, 2020, Marist hosted a ribbon cutting and blessing for the new Wooldridge Center expansion. Marist Student Council Co-Presidents Lily Holmes ’21 and Patrick Withers ’21 had the honor of cutting the ribbon, and Father Rowland blessed the space. The Goizueta Center for Immersive Experience and Design will be formally dedicated in 2021.
 
 

Marist School

3790 Ashford Dunwoody Road, NE
Atlanta, GA 30319-1899
(770) 457-7201
An Independent Catholic School of the Marist Fathers and Brothers