A NEW DAY IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
     In 1991, faculty of Colby's Natural Sciences Division, led by the dean of faculty and endorsed by the president and the Board of Trustees, developed The Plan for the Sciences in the 1990s. The plan's theme, "education through research," outlined a new student-centered curriculum designed to engage students in hands-on, discovery-based research at all levels and to emphasize the integral relationship of research and teaching. A bold agenda was devised to improve our science curriculum, which included acquiring new, state-of-the-art scientific equipment; expanding and renovating laboratory, teaching, and library facilities; increasing the numbers of faculty and staff to meet expanded enrollments in the sciences; and encouraging faculty/student research partnerships so that all students leave Colby as scientifically literate citizens.
     The new and renovated facilities were designed to offer more students opportunities for conducting research, teach science majors skills that will make them competitive after they leave Colby, train students in experimental design, and teach students to critically analyze and review scientific information. In support of the new curriculum, the faculty of the Division of Natural Sciences have redesigned many of their courses and research laboratories to include open-ended, innovative approaches that are more successful in teaching critical thinking, hypothesis testing, experimental design, and collaboration.
     Over the past decade, The Plan for the Sciences in the 1990s has substantially strengthened traditional majors in biology, chemistry, geology, physics and astronomy, and mathematics; established computer science as a separate department in the Division of Natural Sciences; and created three new interdisciplinary programs: Cell and Molecular Biology/Biochemistry (CMBB); Environmental Science (ES); and Science, Technology and Society (STS). The success of the plan has been tremendous, and the percentage of students graduating with a major in science or mathematics has increased from 15 percent in 1990 to 25.5 percent in 1999.

F. W. Olin Science Center
     The F. W. Olin Science Center is the centerpiece of the science renewal at Colby. In 1994, a $6.5-million grant from the F. W. Olin Foundation provided funds to build and equip this 37,150-square-foot building between Mayflower Hill Drive and the Arey Life Sciences Building. The center contains a greatly enlarged science library; technologically advanced classrooms; a computer classroom; faculty offices; multiple group study areas; and laboratories and support facilities for field biology, environmental science, plant biology, organismal biology, and chemical analysis. The center's research greenhouse and herbarium are attractive and eye-catching additions to the campus. Since the completion of the building, Colby students have made extensive use of the Science Library, the numerous group study areas, and the laboratories.

Renovations in Arey Life Sciences and Keyes Chemistry Buildings
     With the space made available by the new F. W. Olin Science Center, Colby renovated and retrofitted the Arey and Keyes buildings to upgrade life sciences and chemistry laboratories, classrooms, and support facilities. The newly renovated spaces are now all connected to the Internet and have computer access ports, the lighting is vastly improved, and the latest safety features have been incorporated. Peninsula benches have been replaced by island benches that allow faculty to move more readily around the room, and some laboratories now include spaces where students can conduct their own research. Both faculty and students have been highly enthusiastic about the renovations and find the facilities welcoming and well designed.
     A long overdue renovation of Keyes 102, the Science Division's largest lecture hall, was also completed. This vastly improved auditorium has excellent acoustics, three screens, outstanding projection facilities linked to computers, and capabilities for audiovisual presentations through video tapes, slides, overheads, laserdiscs, and computers that can be connected to the Internet. With the move of the Science Library from Keyes to the F. W. Olin Science Center, the Astrophysics Teaching Laboratory was created, including dedicated computers so that each student can conduct astrophysical computations during a class period.
     Interdisciplinary science is at the cutting edge of curricular reform these days, and at Colby linkages between the disciplines took physical shape during The Campaign as we constructed skyways connecting the Arey Life Sciences Building to the Keyes Chemistry Building on the west and to the F. W. Olin Science Center on the east. The bridges include a total of seven new offices for faculty and teaching associates, a group meeting facility with a kitchen, and a preparation room for the W. M. Keck Biochemistry Teaching and Research Laboratory. They facilitate sharing of equipment and ideas. Several other faculty offices and adjacent laboratory research spaces in the Arey and Keyes buildings were also renovated.

Paul J. Schupf Scientific Computing Center
     Paul J. Schupf H '91 generously supported the acquisition of 12 Silicon Graphics workstations, seven dual processor Windows NT work stations, and a Power Challenge Origin-2000 desktop mini-supercomputer for the natural sciences. Located in the Keyes Science Building, the Schupf Scientific Computing Center allows students to perform calculations that previously required a Cray supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Students now have the capacity to conduct astronomical and geological image analysis, bioinformatics, and a wide variety of computational chemistry and molecular modeling applications. "The Schupf Center allows our students to use the very best computational facilities to do their research," said Thomas W. Shattuck (chemistry). "The funds from Paul J. Schupf have helped the Science Division build momentum. Our facilities and equipment place us among the very best science programs in the country."



Photographs on this page by Brian Vanden Brink©

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