Sciences Facilities Groundbreaking - May 14, 2005

Let the work begin!
St. Lawrence breaks ground for the largest construction project ever, and one that is essential to the competitive future of the college

Watch the progress of construction on St. Lawrence’s Web site for the next two years.

“This is a day St. Lawrence science and mathematics faculty and students have been waiting for—praying for—for a long, long time,” reflected President Daniel F. Sullivan, as he welcomed slightly soggy but very happy faculty, students, staff and trustees to the groundbreaking ceremony for the Johnson Hall of Science on May 14. The heavy rains dampened the spirits not one bit as the largest construction project in St. Lawrence history began, launching work that will result in a grand opening in fall 2007.

Sullivan set the context for the building project in his remarks. 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,” said Sullivan.

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

Sullivan reminded guests 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.

The faculty and student design team have created 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.