Many MSU faculty members are looking beyond the holiday season to the Feb. 1 opening of the new Bio-Physical Sciences Building, located on Wilson Road.
“Personally, I am very excited. I can’t believe how quickly five years went,” said Bill Latta, director for Facilities Planning and Space Management.
Planning for the nearly 360,000-square-foot, six-story building began in 1996. The Physics and Astronomy, the Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and the Physiology departments will occupy the building’s office and laboratory space.
“A significant feature of the building is its location on the south side of campus, right in the midst of a science corridor,” Latta said. “This is important so scientists can work together across disciplines; scientists will be arranged by functional research themes.”
Currently, researchers are arranged mostly by department, not by their research.
Walkway bridges on the building’s fourth floor connect it to the Chemistry Building and the Biochemistry building.
In addition to the building’s high technology, such as an Ethernet port at every lecture chair, Wolfgang Bauer, chairperson of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said students will appreciate a shorter walk between classes.
“Students that study science are all (soon to be) in the same complex,” he said. “In winter, they will not have to leave the complex.”
The Bio-Physical Sciences Building is equipped with features ranging from the SOAR telescope observation room to separate ventilation systems for labs and offices to an outdoor classroom on the building’s rooftop.
“Astronomy students will use the telescope observation deck on top of the building,” Bauer said. “They will attend a class and do their observation at night.”
Bauer said the building’s structure and the physics labs being placed in the basement limit vibrations, which is important when doing detailed atomic experiments.
Students and researchers looking for a break from their work will find a coffee shop and food service on the building’s first floor, underneath the 64-foot-tall glass atrium that runs through the center of the building.
Angela Sanders said improvements to the physiology labs in Giltner Hall are greatly needed.
“I think it is time for the school to update everything,” the physiology senior said. “When was it built? 1800?”
Giltner was first constructed in 1913 and has had six additions, the latest in 1964. The Physics-Astronomy Building, which will also be partially vacated by the move, was built in 1949.
“They can really benefit from updating the facilities and making it more user-friendly,” Sanders said.
A library serving the new building’s three departments and the chemistry department will be on the first floor.
Nancy Lucas, the MSU branch libraries coordinator, said the library will give students a place to interact.
“We are going to have individual study carrels with Ethernet hookups,” she said, “(And) the lobby will have some more carrels and a group study area.”
Roughly 80,000 books and 450 journal titles will be kept in the library.
Beside its individual features, Jerry Dodgson, chairperson of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, said the building will benefit MSU’s future overall.
“It will make us more competitive for recruiting new graduate students and faculty,” he said. “They are more likely to want to come to a place with modern facilities.”
