Simmons College of Kentucky is planning to build a new campus on the site of the old Christ the King Church in Louisville’s Chickasaw neighborhood.
The new Westover Campus would be a hub for science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) learning for Louisville’s only historically Black college. Converting the church property into classrooms and labs is expected to cost around $32 million in total.
Myra Rock, chief of staff at Simmons, said plans for expanding science and technology offerings have been a goal of college for years. She said conversations between administrators at Simmons and industry leaders in Louisville often had a recurring theme of “asking for more and more graduates in the STEAM fields.”
“At Simmons it’s so important for us to meet workforce needs,” Rock said. “There's a need in our community, not just in the West End, not just in the city, but across the commonwealth, for talent in the STEAM fields and specifically underrepresented talent.”
Simmons College acquired the Christ the King Church campus, located at 724 South 44th Street, in March. The Archdiocese of Louisville made the decision to close the church and transfer ownership because of declining membership and the financial burden of taking care of an aging campus.
Built in 1927, the property initially housed the church and a K-8 school called School of Christ the King.
“What’s really impactful about this story is that that property is returning to its original purpose: To reintroduce education, and higher education at that, to the deepest reaches of our most disadvantaged neighborhood,” Rock said.
Simmons is also set to receive $1.5 million in seed funding from Louisville Metro. The 2026 city budget, which Metro Council approved last month, included money to help the college pay for planning and environmental and structural studies.
The funding proposal Simmons submitted to the city for the grant shows what kind of resources the finished campus could have: a chemical engineering lab, an aviation simulator and a prototyping and fabrication space. The college is also planning to create a new theatre for performance arts on the campus.
The new Westover Campus would allow Simmons to expand some of its current course offerings, like its existing master of science in medical science, while adding new programs, like engineering.
Simmons’ funding proposal included letters of support from the Archdiocese, the Westover Subdivision Association and two JCPS schools, W.E.B. DuBois Academy High and The Academy @ Shawnee. Rock said they hope to create pipelines from the academies into engineering and aviation management programs at Simmons.
City funding toward the project and the donated property accounts for about $5.5 of the total $32 million price tag. Simmons plans to raise the remaining $26.5 million from public and private sources in the coming months.
Diversity in STEM through HBCUs
Plans for a new campus is the latest sign of growth for Louisville’s only HBCU.
Enrollment last fall more than doubled compared to two years prior, with 508 full-time and part-time students studying at Simmons College of Kentucky. The college has also hired dozens of new faculty over the last two decades.
HBCUs have played a pivotal role in helping students, especially Black students, obtain degrees and jobs within the STEM field.
Black men and women accounted for just 8.2% of STEM workers in 2021, according to a National Science Foundation survey. But HBCUs were responsible for more than a quarter of all Black students graduating with bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields.
Cheryl Talley, analytic hub director at the HBCU STEM US Research Center, said historically Black colleges and universities are disproportionately successful at graduating students with STEM degrees despite the additional challenges their typical student body faces. Research has shown that public schools predominantly serving Black students are less likely to have advanced STEM courses like calculus and physics.
“It’s not just a question of how many different STEM disciplines can show up as far as curricular offerings,” Talley said. “The real question is: Who gets students in, even if they’re underprepared, and then gets them out with a STEM degree, with what all that takes.”
Dr. Mark Melton, a neuroscientist and former interim provost and VP academic affairs at Saint Augustine’s College, said HBCUs across the country are actively engaged in expanding their STEM offerings and addressing the “shortfall of homegrown STEM scientists.”
Melton said one of the reasons HBCUs have been so successful with STEM education is because of their ability to meet student needs.
“It’s one thing to have the space and the equipment, but it's the environment, your advisors, your mentors,” he said. “HBCUs do a very good job, from my perspective, of meeting them where they are to help fill that gap.”
There are, however, new challenges that HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions are facing, including cuts to federal funding that support students looking to enter the STEM fields.
Funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation has been clawed back under President Donald Trump’s administration, and some programs with diversity goals have been axed entirely, including the Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) and the U-RISE and G-RISE programs.
