Posted on August 5, 2005 at 3:30 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Justice Sciences and some staffers with the UAB Undergraduate Admission office are moving into the newly constructed University Boulevard Office Building at 1201 University Boulevard, this week. To celebrate, the UAB School of Social and Behavioral Sciences will host an open house event at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, August 11, at the new building. The event will include a reception and tours of the facility.

The building, which features state-of-the-art wireless communications technology, was partly funded through a $3 million bond issue by the state. The building has four floors and is approximately 34,000 square feet.

UAB Office of Undergraduate Admission will use the building’s first floor to welcome prospective students and organize campus tours. The new space includes three offices and a workroom for the university’s tour guides, the UAB TrailBlazers. The first floor also includes a large, state-of-the-art presentation room where information sessions will be held for tour participants.

Campus tours, which are offered twice a day on weekdays, will depart from the new facility, said Chenise Ryan, director of UAB Undergraduate Admission.

The Department of Justice Sciences is moving from its old location at 901 15th Street South, to occupy the second and third floors of the office building. The department hopes to eventually expand to the fourth floor in the near future, says John Sloan, Ph.D., the department chairman.

The University Boulevard Office Building provides more classroom and laboratory space for the department’s criminal justice, pre-law and forensic science programs and space for the mock trial team, Sloan said. The new space will enhance the department’s efforts to recruit and train students and provide services to the greater Birmingham community, he said.

The building’s second floor features the Burr & Forman UAB Mock Courtroom, which was made possible with the help of a gift from the Birmingham law firm Burr & Forman LLP. The courtroom features a handmade judge’s bench, witness stand and attorneys’ tables with outlets for laptop computers and Internet access.

The courtroom also has a touch panel to control a projector, screen and all audio and visual equipment. In addition to the courtroom, the second floor has two lecture rooms, a conference room and faculty offices.

The third floor has more faculty offices, a conference room, a darkroom and six laboratories, each of which will be used for specific purposes such as DNA analysis, drug and trace analysis, tissue analysis and for instruction.