NCSSM-Morganton's Joiner Hall was once in severe disrepair, but is now a fully-functioning space. (photo: Robin Beets)
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NCSSM-Morganton completes initial buildout, closing opening chapter of new campus in Western North Carolina
April 24, 2026
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NCSSM-Morganton put the finishing touches this month on the final construction project linked to the school’s opening stages. The UNC Health Blue Ridge Student Wellness and Activities Center (SWAC) is now complete and ready for student use after a two-year construction schedule that saw the building go from mounds of red clay dug from the hillside on the Morganton campus to a fully-functioning facility. As suggested by its name, the center owes its existence to the generous support of Morganton-based UNC Health Blue Ridge, which committed $5 million to the project. The gift was the largest private or corporate gift to the NCSSM Foundation at its donation. Support from additional generous donors and the State of North Carolina supplemented the gift from UNC Health Blue Ridge.
Competing with SWAC to finish first was Joiner Hall, a three-story brick building that stood for almost 100 years before a complete renovation of the structure began in November 0f 2023 and wrapped up in September of 2025. Joiner Hall’s renewal came in most part courtesy of capital appropriations to construct the Morganton campus.
“This has been a long time coming, for sure,” says Kevin Baxter, NCSSM-Morganton’s Vice Chancellor & Chief Campus Officer. “All the credit for leading this transformative work goes to our amazing team in capital projects and facilities management and I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the incredible grace, kindness, and creativity exercised by our employees and students as they adapted less suitable space for courses and programming over the last several years.”
The steel, glass, and brick exterior of SWAC mirrors the other new buildings on NCSSM-Morganton’s campus. Together, they point to the school’s future as a cutting-edge STEM-focused high school designed to inspire the next generations of North Carolina leaders. In particular, SWAC will support students’ growth through a holistic approach to students’ health and well-being.
Anchoring the facility will be a gymnasium set up for basketball and volleyball, indoor walking and running, and weight-training and cardio activities. Separate locker room facilities for students and faculty/staff will complete the physical health space.
Paired with the exercise areas will be a suite of counseling spaces (all of NCSSM-Morganton’s college and wellness counselors will be housed there), the UNC Health Blue Ridge clinic to deliver health services, the Center for Advising and Academic Success, which helps students successfully manage their academic obligations; and offices for student-facing Student Services staff. A welcome desk and lounge area for students to socialize completes the facility.
With facilities addressing students’ physical, mental, and academic well-being, SWAC will serve for decades to come as something of a one-stop shop for students seeking resources to enhance their time at NCSSM.
Jenny Merrill, NCSSM-Morganton’s Dean of Students, says it’s important for students to have a single place on campus to go to for all their health and wellness needs as ensuring wellness requires a holistic, whole-person approach.
“Physical and mental and academic wellness are all integrated, and we wanted a space intentionally designed for all that,” she says. “The new space is an easy walk for students as it’s right down from the Residence Hall, and now they really have the facilities and services that they need and deserve. Prior to SWAC opening when our health and wellness resources were all located at different places on campus, students may not have seen them every day. Now, whenever they’re in SWAC to exercise or see a counselor, they’ll walk past all those other resources and hopefully it will make it easier for them to walk through those doors, too.”
While SWAC is the newest kid on the NCSSM block, Joiner Hall stands as one of the campus’s most iconic structures. Grand in appearance when it was first opened in 1930, the building had fallen into disrepair in the last decades until it was eventually vacated and boarded up. Almost $8 million in funding from the North Carolina General Assembly brought it fully back to life.
Each floor of Joiner Hall is distinct in its design and use. Anchoring the building on the first floor are the school’s visual arts facilities which include an expansive pottery studio complete with a kiln and a generously-sized 2D art studio for painting and drawing.
The second floor of Joiner Hall is more tech-driven, with a data science and a computer science classroom set up for pod-style teaching with several pods of five seats around a central screen. These pods are integrated with the instructors’ central command in the center of the class for instruction and activities focused on data and computer science projects.
Topping Joiner Hall (and unapologetically enjoying the building’s most scenic views) is NCSSM-Morganton’s Extended Learning team, which leads efforts to deliver NCSSM programming to students and teachers throughout the state. The floor includes offices for staff and a large conference room and teaching classroom designed for teleconferencing and professional development initiatives.
Gina Barrier, NCSSM-Morganton’s Director of Summer Programs and Extended Partnerships, is happy to have the team all in one location after temporarily residing in other spaces while the school completed its buildout.
“I’m grateful for every space that’s been given to us, but this space feels more stable,” she says. “We love it; we have storage we’re excited about, and plenty of room to host our summer staff who will soon be arriving, and now we have an extra building for classes and professional development.”
The full integration of Joiner Hall and the UNC Health Blue Ridge Student Wellness and Activities Center and Joiner Hall marks the completion of NCSSM-Morganton’s opening chapter. But it’s not the end of innovation. In fact, it is in many ways simply the final piece of the foundation upon which NCSSM-Morganton will continue to build. There’s far more to come for the school perched upon the grassy hilltop
Baxter, the Chief Campus Officer, says it’s time to adapt to a new – but very welcomed – normal.
“It’s honestly somewhat difficult to reconcile that we’ve reached the conclusion of major construction on our campus as it’s been our reality for seven years now, but we are all excited to make fast use of these new spaces now that NCSSM-Morganton can finally hang up our hard hats!”
