Shane EvansExcitement fills one student as she enters Cabrini College’s newly built center for science, education and technology. Her eyes light up at the sight of fresh new Pyrex beakers, test tubes and stirs. “This is what I was meant to do,” she thinks as she walks through the halls to her first class of the day.
As she walks deeper into the building, she notices empty rooms with construction items within them, and even more so, sees students not using some of the equipment they should be using for some experiments.
What is going on?
Cabrini College’s new SET building filled every biology, chemistry, education and technology major’s heart with glee at first sight, but many students are concerned with what the SET building is used for, especially if they do not have classes in the building.
The interior of the building has one 62 seat lecture hall which is used mostly by science courses. This room is very busy so classes start at 8:15 a.m. Although the large lecture hall is used quite frequently, the science classes remain small. The courses that are taught include general chemistry, biological science, sections of health and the human body, ecology, science and society and anatomy and physiology. Each of these classes are taught twice a day.
There are 3000 square feet of unfinished space on the third floor. Dr. Sheryl Fuller-Espie, chairperson of the science department, explained, “This space is not finished and contains a lot of construction materials. The college hopes to attract a small biotech firm who will pay for the construction to finish off the space according to their particular specifications for the type of research they do. So far, no one has expressed an interest, but the College is hoping to one day find a suitable partner.”
The college has successfully leased out one section of the SET building to Isosciences, a small chemical synthesis company that leases one research lab and one office. The president of the company, Dr. Scott Landvatter, teaches science and society at the college.
Although Cabrini College is trying to lease out rooms to outside sources, the SET building has many rooms available for day-to-day classes. These other rooms include a physical science lab, a science education classroom and laboratory, biological sciences lab, a biological science lab, the biotechnology lab and research labs that are used by faculty and students for research purposes.
There are other important rooms to the SET building. The basement is used as storage space for equipment, chemicals and waste. And on the roof, there is a brand-new observation deck for astronomy courses. Science faculty have offices in the SET. Biology has seven offices and Chemistry has four offices, which accommodate the full-time and adjunct faculty.
When told of how Cabrini College is looking to lease the unfinished section of the SET building, one student who is not a science major, and would like to remain anonymous said, “I don’t know why they are doing something like that. It makes no sense because that is valuable space we could use for the growing population of incoming students.”
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Posted to the web by Shane Evans
