Mercy Academy launches capital campaign to build state-of-the-art STEAM innovation center

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Louisville high school is the first all-female, STEM-certified school in the nation, and it's about to expand.

Friday, Mercy Academy held an early celebration for International Women's Day, which is Saturday, and launched its Mercy BOLD Capital Campaign to expand its campus.

The goal of the campaign is to raise $15 million to build a 12,000-square-foot STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) innovation center next to the current school by purchasing 5.5 acres of land.

Money raised will also go toward increasing tuition assistance for students.

"Mercy Academy has always been at the forefront of providing a future-focused education for young women in Louisville," Becky Wise Montague, Mercy Academy president, said in a news release Friday. "After we completed our strategic plan in 2020, it was clear that additional space for STEAM and increased tuition assistance are the greatest needs for our students."

The state-of-the-art STEAM center was designed by an all-female team, many of whom are Mercy Academy alumnae. It will include two STEAM shops, a health science lab, a mock medical exam room, a technology classroom, a faculty wellness room, an outdoor classroom and courtyard, as well as two studios for 2D art and ceramics. School leaders said there will also be four collaborative spaces to support project-based learning.

"Our girls are very authentic, they're hard-working. They want to try everything, and I think that that's an important part of having a building that has all of these opportunities," said Leslie Hibdon, Mercy Academy Advancement director. "And for them to know they can do what these guys are doing, they can have these careers and they're confident and they're ready to do that."

School leaders said the center will be named the Dr. Sheri Kalbfleisch Innovation Center, thanks to a $2 million donation to the capital campaign by Paul Kalbfleisch to remember his wife, "an influential alumna from the class of 1965." He also pledged an additional $1 million to support the school's endowment.

"Mercy is where my heart and soul is because of Sheri," Kalbfleisch said in a news release. "Sheri believed it all starts with an education, and Mercy is a top-notch education."

Construction on the center is expected to begin in 2026.

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