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Lawrence J. Winston, Chair of the Board of Trustees
Remarks at Johnson Hall of Science Dedication Ceremony
October 20, 2007

Welcome!  What a day!

I looked back at the remarks I shared with so many of you on a rainy spring North Country day in May 2005.  That weather certainly didn’t match the mood among us!  We were just simply as excited as could be as we broke ground for our newest and most ambitious project in University history.  I said then that we had been planning for that day for a long, long time and that good things come to those who are patient enough to do the work just right. The results of our plans, I said then, will be a magnificent facility helping to continue moving us in the direction we want to go – forward.
And here we are today, at our magnificent Johnson Hall of Science. It’s as inspiring as we dared hope. It’s symbolic of our commitment to a very bright future for St. Lawrence and for the world in which we live and serve. 

Johnson Hall models sustainability, it shows to us all how we can have a facility that minimizes the negative impact on our environment while being a comfortable and functional space for teaching, learning and research. As I reminded us two years ago, new issues in science emerge every day, and with our outstanding faculty and the resources this new center make available, our students will be among those helping all of us sort through those complex questions.

We will hear from people today who were central to the planning of Johnson Hall, who made the dream come true, and who are living the dream we imagined for them.  After our remarks, I hope you’ll take our tours and wander the halls to meet many of our best science research students and their faculty mentors. Students and faculty are the heart of this building and I hope you enjoy and appreciate their vitality as much as I do.

I believe we did the work for Johnson Hall just right, and on behalf of the Board of Trustees, I thank everyone—the hundreds of people at the University, contracted by the University, and affiliated with the University, who made this possible.