Ensuing a year of renovations, the Social Science Building is now open to students and faculty, after the ribbon cutting took place yesterday, at 3:30 p.m. in front of the south entrance.

“All the classrooms will be smart classrooms,” Tom Brown, assistant director of facilities, said. “The classrooms are a lot more technologically advanced. The professors will be able to use the document image cameras and projectors. There is also WiFi throughout the building.”

The renovation of the building cost $5.6 million and the funds came from Measure E as well as the state, Tom Fallo, president, said, during the opening ceremony speech.

While many professors such as Lance Widman, political science professor, and Christina Gold, history professor, were relocated to different parts of the campus due to the renovation, they were happy to see that their new home is finally open.

“The Initial redesign wasn’t very good so the faculty and the administration got together and came up with some new ideas and the plans were redesigned,” Gold said. “I’m very pleased with the new building. The classrooms look great, they’re all modern and they all have the technology you need. The offices are smaller than we’re used to but they’re all modern and up-to-date.”

With a year of being in old classrooms such as the Manhattan Beach Modules, the new smart classrooms are definitely going to take some time of getting used to, Widman said.

“You get in certain habits at the old buildings,” Widman said. “I taught there for 30 years and I was comfortable there. Here, we’re going to have learn everything over again. We’re going to have a pretty big learning curve getting used to all this technology.”