Syracuse University's new $107 million science building features state-of-the-art laboratories, spaces for scientists to collaborate on research projects and a center supported with taxpayers' money that will try to convert research into local jobs.
The research-to-jobs center will work to stimulate the local economy by finding new products that could be made here, state and SU officials said. It also could help connect students with local companies, possibly convincing some to say in the region, they said.
"Hopefully, a lot of the research that will take place in this new building will be research that will spin off into small companies," said George Langford, dean of SU's College of Arts and Sciences.
SU will dedicate its new Life Sciences Complex with a series of events today and Friday. The 232,890-square-foot building between College Place and Comstock Avenue is SU's largest building project ever. Work began in April 2006, and the building was ready for students and faculty in late August.
| A Tour of SU's New Life Sciences Complex |
The new complex will house for the first time the biology and chemistry departments in one building, allowing more interdisciplinary research and teaching to occur, Langford said.
"New knowledge is going to happen at the interface of the disciplines," Langford said.
And that new knowledge could lead to new products, which could lead to new local jobs, SU officials said.
The university received a $5 million state grant to create the Restore Center for Environmental Biotechnology, to promote partnerships among SU researchers, professionals from local biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies and other local colleges and universities.
"The idea here is to come up with new ideas, new products, that can be commercialized and manufactured here in New York state," said Assemblyman William Magnarelli, D-Syracuse, who helped secure the money through the Assembly's Rebuilding the Empire State Through Opportunities in Regional Economies (RESTORE) program.
Magnarelli said public money was funneled to the private institution for the project because it will ultimately help the public.
"They're helping to create jobs, and that is the bottom line," Magnarelli said.
The Restore Center should also help prepare SU students for jobs with local companies that partner with the center, Langford said.
As more manufacturing jobs migrate overseas, the U.S. needs to be able to step up its leadership in innovation, Langford said.
"I think that's key to our success, and SU has to be a major player in that," he said.
Many of the research projects going on in the new building are supported through research grants from the government or other independent organizations.
In addition to its high-tech features, the Life Sciences Complex was designed to have a number of comfortable, informal spaces for students to interact with each other and faculty.
The glass atrium joining the Life Sciences Complex to the Center for Science and Technology building, which houses chemistry research facilities, has groupings of comfortable chairs and tables. There also are lounges at both ends of the research wing's first floor, and seating areas line the hallway opposite the first-floor laboratories.
Many of the spaces within the building were built with donations from alumni, such as the atrium, built with a $6 million donation from Jack and Laura Milton, of Massachusetts, Class of 1951. The university's board of trustees authorized the $107 million budget for the project, of which $90 million is bonded and the rest covered by fundraising.
In addition to the research wing, the building has a teaching wing that includes about a dozen laboratories for students to gain hands-on experience, classrooms for recitation and other small-group sessions and technology-equipped conference rooms. Wireless and wired Internet connectivity is available throughout the building.
The College of Arts and Sciences has about 300 undergraduate biology majors, 50 chemistry undergraduate majors and 50 undergraduate majors in biochemistry, which is an interdisciplinary program of the biology and chemistry departments.
Each semester, about 600 to 800 additional undergraduates enroll in lower division courses in those three programs, and 24 full-time biology faculty and 22 full-time chemistry faculty members teach in the three programs, according to SU.
Langford said he would like to see more students become science majors.
"Every university is looking for ways to attract more students into these disciplines, so I'm hoping that this new building will help us to not only attract students to try out these new interdisciplinary approaches to the life sciences, but help us retain them," Langford said.
