St. Lawrence University: President

Science Center Groundbreaking
Daniel F. Sullivan—May 14, 2005

This is a day St. Lawrence science and mathematics faculty and students have been waiting for—praying for—for a long, long time.

Why, at a liberal arts college, should we get so worked up about science and mathematics?

The natural sciences moved to the center of the liberal arts curriculum to join the arts, humanities and, later, the social sciences, in the latter part of the 19 th century. Strength and commitment to science and mathematics education is an old thing for liberal arts colleges, not a new thing.

Mathematics, of course, is the language of science (and for subfields in the social sciences)

St. Lawrence and a select group of other liberal arts colleges graduate far more undergraduate majors in natural science and mathematics, on a proportional basis, than even the nation’s great research universities—in our case over 25% of our students graduate with a major in science or mathematics. We are critically important engines for the supply of the nation’s science and mathematics pipeline, and because our science and math students do their work in a liberal arts context their science and mathematics education prepares them for leadership in a world increasingly dependent on those fields.

Excellence in science and mathematics education, in short, is essential to St. Lawrence, and essential to the world in which we live.

This means that attending to our science and mathematics facilities, as we now are, is not a discretionary choice—not to do so, not to make it possible for our students and faculty to pursue excellence in science and mathematics—would be a decision to resign from the cluster of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges in which St. Lawrence rightly belongs.

Excellence in science and mathematics education today involves teaching and learning that is hands-on, investigative, and research-rich. It involves students “doing” science with faculty, illustrated wonderfully for trustees in yesterday’s psychology student research poster session in the library. It requires spaces that foster and support that kind of teaching and learning.

Richard Green, our lead architect, and our faculty and student design team have given us a building that does just that—it puts St. Lawrence on the leading edge in science facilities among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges and it comes with an outstanding commitment to sustainable design.

This is a wonderful, wonderful day for St. Lawrence. I’d like now to introduce and recognize the architects and contractor on our project:
Richard Green, Lead Architect
Peter Blewett - Principal AIA, Stubbins Associates
Jim Tyler - President, Northland Associates
Larry LaComb - Chief Estimator, Northland Associates

Tom Greene, Professor of Psychology and First-Phase Faculty Shepherd of this project

Sarah Johnson Redlich ’82, trustee, and with her family the person who has provided the leadership gift that has made this project possible. Indeed, the building we begin today will be named Sarah Johnson Redlich ’82 Hall of Science. Sarah!