University of Utah's College of Science to occupy old museum

SALT LAKE CITY — When the dinosaur bones, rock slabs and fossils venture from their current location at Utah's Museum of Natural History to a new home, the inside walls will come down to facilitate one of the largest on-campus renovation projects the University of Utah has yet to undertake.

Kicking off the project is a $10 million donation from one of Utah's most successful entrepreneurial couples, Ann S. and Gary L. Crocker, founders of several science-based companies nationwide. Their gift begins an estimated $75 million renovation that will gather the U.'s College of Science from sprawling locations all over campus, to one core building, the historic George Thomas building, in President's Circle.

"Now (the circle) is bounded on one side by science and on the other by Gardner Hall and the arts," said U. President Michael K. Young. "I think how fitting it is, when you think about a great university, and you think about what it contributes to the world and what we bring our students who come here to learn, that they will walk through a circle that has on both sides, the most critical things — science and art."

The plan is to gut the old museum, which originally housed the campus library, and turn it into a state-of-the-art facility, offering educational aspects from all four departments within the college of science — including chemistry, biology, mathematics and physics. It will be an interdisciplinary center for science education at the U. College of Science, said Dean Pierre V. Sokolsky. The design of the new building includes a seismic upgrade but will also "enable us to push forward our ideas about interdisciplinary research and education."

The Center for Cell and Genome Science, named for the Crockers, will occupy 50 percent of the completed space, which Sokolsky said is a symbolic expression of the synthesis of teaching and research.

"The center is an exemplar of where science is going in terms of interdisciplinary nature," he said. "It really is tuning in on the fact that the cell, the human cell and the cell of biological organisms, is the interface between our basic understanding of biology and of basic science, and applications to medicine and pharmacology. It all sort of comes together around the cell and the cell membrane."

Crocker, a longtime friend of Young's and past member of the U.'s board of trustees, said the life science industry depends on scientists who have an expansive knowledge base.