PRELIMINARY DESIGN, SUBJECT TO CHANGE THE NEW CIS WILL INCORPORATE THE CURRENT DANA SCIENCE CENTER AND EXPAND INTO THE HARDER HALL FOOTPRINT.
2. Subjects
Over the past decade, scores of professors and others developed a new Science Vision Statement. Next a working group was charged with iden tifying how new facilities and programs might combine for optimal impact on teaching, research, and learning. And a task force used that group’s report to begin the programming and design of CIS. Now Kel- logg (an associate dean of the faculty) and chemist Kim Fred erick are serving as project coordinators. “Literally hundreds of people collabo- rated,” Kellogg says. “People really leaned into our discussions around shared intellectual interests, and those conversations led to plans for some very innovative spaces.”
Chosen from 10 firms, the Boston-based Payette architectural firm is designing the center, in collaboration with faculty and others. Payette’s Bob Schaff ner says, “Compared to our work on other science-education buildings, Skidmore’s planning was more comprehensive. Everyone here was already committed to interdisciplinary teaching and shared facilities and eager to work creatively with us and each other.” More than 800 science majors, about 80 research students each
summer, and every other student on campus will make use of the new center.
3. Key Elements
Supporting Skidmore’s science mission—to streng then the science programs, build the science literacy of all students, expand student re- search, and foster interdisciplinarity—CIS wil be the college’s largest project since its move to the new campus in the 1960s and ’70s. Hous- ing biology, chemistry, environmental studies, geosciences, health and exercise sciences, mathematics and computer science, neuroscience, physics, and psychology in updated, innovative facilities, CIS aims to demonstrate the core creativity in the sciences as in all disciplines. All-campus features on the drawing board include eight general classrooms that humanities and other faculty helped to plan. An Idea Lab will nurture joint projects in fields from business to art. And the va- cating of space in former science areas will give other departments and programs “opportunities to explore new ways of engaging students,” Frederick says.
Beau Breslin, dean of the faculty, says, “We studied similar proj- ects, and none had our scale of impact, with nine departments and 40% of our faculty.” He adds, “First-rate colleges have first-rate science facilities. And when they upgrade, they see benefits in admissions and student quality across the board.”g
WINTER 2014 SCOPE 15
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