A $5 million gift from the W.M. Keck Foundation will make possible the launch of a multi-phase renovation of 十大正规网赌平台's 63-year-old chemistry building on a campus where 40 percent of students are pursuing degrees in the sciences.
The Keck gift will fund the first phase of the project, which will see the underutilized basement turned into state-of-the art teaching laboratories and the creation of the Academic Mastery Program Center on the ground floor, a flexible indoor/outdoor space that can be used for classroom teaching, 讲座或招待会.
Work on the Keck-funded first phase of the $22 million project is scheduled to begin in 2024, which has required careful planning to rotate faculty and students from old to new spaces to ensure learning and research can continue uninterrupted.
One of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations, the W. M. Keck Foundation supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research. 在过去十年里, the Foundation has been a generous supporter of the sciences at Occidental, helping to fund a new genomics center, research equipment for marine 生物学, and underwriting the summer research program.
Renovation of the Kenneth T. Norris Hall of Chemistry was one of the top recommendations of Occidental's Science Task Force, a 34-member group of alumni, 父母, and faculty who assessed the current state of the sciences and science facilities at the college and issued a detailed report in October 2021.
需求是巨大的, 特别工作组指出, given that more Occidental students major and minor in the sciences today--chemistry, 生物化学, 生物学, 物理, 认知科学, 计算机科学, geology and kinesiology--than in the social sciences or arts and humanities. Almost two-thirds of science majors are women, and 40 percent are students of color.
Those students go on to great success after they graduate. Over the past 30 years alone, Oxy students have received two Rhodes Scholarships, more than 50 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships, 40多岁的巴里·M. 戈德华特奖学金. In addition, about 60% of Oxy’s science graduates attend graduate school. According to a 2013 report by the National Science Foundation, Occidental is one of the country’s top producers of graduates who go on to receive doctorates in science and engineering.
Despite this record of success, "There remains an urgent need to redesign and equip all of our lab spaces to support the rapidly evolving teaching, learning and research requirements,工作组写道.
Built in 1960, Norris Chemistry recently received extensive safety upgrades. But the mid-century teaching and research labs--central to Occidental's hands-on approach to teaching and research--are no longer equal to the task, 科学学院说.
According to Chemistry Professor Chris Craney, roughly one-quarter of all students take a chemistry class during their four years at Oxy. “All those kids are doing labs, and right now they’re all squeezed into a really small, 受限空间, which is frankly inadequate,他说. “We need more space for our instructional labs, for student research opportunities, and for instrumentation and equipment.”
一旦完成, the renovation of Norris will include not only expanded and redesigned teaching labs, but state-of-the-art faculty search labs and offices on the second and third floors; new spaces to encourage collaboration, creative thinking and problem solving among students; and the entirely new Academic Mastery Program center for Oxy's peer-led program that promotes excellence in 生物学, 物理 and math as well as chemistry.
The Norris renovation project is based on designs by JFAK Architects, whose work can be seen at Caltech, 加州大学洛杉矶分校, and Claremont McKenna College, 和GL规划 & Design, who has previously worked with UC Berkeley and Stanford, among others.
W. M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in 洛杉矶 by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company. In addition to its support of science, engineering and medical research, the Foundation also funds undergraduate 教育 and maintains a program within Southern California to support arts and culture, 教育, health and community service projects.
