School to break ground on newscience center.
Ursinus College embarked on a new era for science education and undergraduate student research with a $29 million Innovation and Discovery Center.
The interdisciplinary facility boldly reflects the college’s liberal arts legacy, further empowering its faculty to educate future leaders in science and other professions as they prepare for the careers of the future.
Ursinus leaders, alumni, faculty, students, government officials and community members broke ground for the new center on Friday, Oct. 21 on the Ursinus College campus. The 42,500-squarefoot facility will be built at the academic center of the Ursinus campus off Main Street and Ninth Avenue in Collegeville and physically connect Pfahler and Thomas halls. It is scheduled to be completed during fall 2018.
“The Innovation and Discovery Center will lead the way in how a new generation of liberal arts undergraduates pursue scientific knowledge,” Ursinus College President Brock Blomberg said in a press release. “The (Innovation and Discovery Center) recognizes that we must teach for careers that haven’t been invented yet, which is why it will infuse policy, entrepreneurship and science with a new approach. This is an ambitious, once-in-a-generation project that will foster creative and innovative thinking, which has always been a hallmark of the Ursinus experience.”
Designed with the “science of the future” in mind, the Innovation and Discovery Center will house Ursinus’ Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good, which provides opportunities for students to become civically engaged scientific leaders, and the U-Imagine Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies, which encourages students to exercise innovation, leadership, imagination and creativity, the release states.
Collaborative spaces among multiple academic disciplines will further cultivate the concept of a shared, common experience, a reality of the modern world. The Innovation and Discovery Center will incorporate 30-seat and 50-seat technology-enhanced active learning classrooms; flexible laboratories that are easily configurable to
Ursinus leaders, alumni, faculty, students, government officials and communitymembers broke ground for the new center on Friday, Oct. 21 on the Ursinus College campus
suit specific needs of a research project; open meeting and work spaces that bring together students and faculty from every discipline; and a unique “maker space” that allows students to create their own tools and technology required for original research and entrepreneurial initiatives, according to the release.
When complete, Ursinus College will become the first institution in the Centennial Conference of colleges to combine policy, entrepreneurship and science under one roof, the release states.
“Students no longer want to be constrained within one academic discipline,” April Edwards, the interim vice president for academic affairs and interim dean of Ursinus College, said in the release. “There are growing professional fields that don’t identify with one specific area of study. We want our students to deeply explore multiple areas of expertise — and to understand how academic disciplines intersect.”
“The IDC encourages students to think on a broader scale and to answer critical questions. It has the potential to shape the minds of future leaders and decision makers. We believe it will catapult our students to leadership in research and science education and blaze a trail for the next phase in liberal arts education – one with intentionality and purpose,” Edwards said.
According to the release, the project is supported by funds from the college’s “Keep the Promise” campaign, a comprehensive fundraising campaign that is the most ambitious in Ursinus’s history. The remainder of the funding is being secured through tax-exempt municipal bonds.