Paul Heath Center - John Wood Community College

Mary Ellen Orr
Auditorium

Picture: Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium.

The Mary Ellen Orr Auditorium was dedicated to past trustee Mary Ellen Orr in 2005. It is the crown jewel of the Heath Center and serves as the primary performance area for the Fine Arts Department. The 293-seat venue offers patrons a quality environment through state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems and is fast becoming known throughout the area for its fine acoustical properties.

Picture: Assistant Professor of Music Rhonda Basinger teaches applied (private) lessons in piano as well as class piano at JWCC.

The Paul Heath Community Education
and Fine Arts Center, named for the College’s founding president, is the new home of the Fine Arts Department. Opened in Fall 2004, the 52,000 square-foot structure is state of the art and provides ample instruction and performance space for the growing division.

In addition to classrooms and offices, music facilities include two rehearsal halls, practice rooms, electronic piano and theory lab, student lounge, music library and smart (Internet) classrooms. The Heath Center also boasts all the trappings of a professional theater— auditorium, greenroom, workshop, and costume shop— and a Picture: Rebecca Butler, Associate Faculty in Community Education, demonstrates the pottery wheel. JWCC began offering credit ceramics classes in Fall 2006. north light art studio, graphic arts lab and darkroom support a broad range of offerings in the visual arts. A kiln and wheels for ceramics are also available.

Gallery space and lighted display cases on both floors of the Heath Center provide several hundred feet of exhibition space for campus and community art shows.

The centerpiece of the auditorium lobby is Creation, a 12’x 14’ floor mosaic by Youlia Tkatchouk of Chicago. Creation consists of thousands of pieces of natural stone designed to depict elements of the arts, literature and poetry. The piece, which was commissioned through the State of Illinois Capital Development Board’s Art-in-Architecture Program, is the first floor mosaic in the program’s history and is available for public viewing during regular college operating hours.

The Center also houses the college’s community and adult education/literacy programs, Business and Industry Training, the Community Technology Center, and the Adams County RSVP.