Westminster College opens new science building

SALT LAKE CITY — Westminster College officials think a new, state-of-the-art science building will change the way their students learn.

With its 14 integrated lab classrooms and interactive features, the Meldrum Science Center is designed to foster a subtle shift from teaching to learning, where professors act less as lecturers and more as mentors giving students hands-on experience.

It officially opened on Friday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett. Westminster President Michael Bassis called it a "historic day" for the private, liberal arts college.

The $30 million, 60,000-square-foot facility replaces a 60-year-old building a tenth its size. Each of its four floors is wrapped around an open atrium showcasing a spiraling, DNA-helix-shaped sculpture by local artists Dan Cummings and Dana Kuglin based on the genetic blueprint for a butterfly's wing.

Abundant natural light, recycled materials — including wood from a landmark plane tree that came down to make way for the building — and water conservation features make it a green structure, with the goal of earning gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) status later this month.

But professors are most excited about having flexible teaching spaces that put concepts immediately into practice in the lab. Forget large lectures with a periodic table on the wall and half the class falling asleep.

There are also five research laboratories, including a food-science lab donated by Schirf Brewing Co. that will host a beer-brewing class taught during the school's May Term.

"It facilitates a different kind of teaching (and) an integrated, inquiry-based way of learning," said arts and sciences dean Mary Jane Chase. "Everything we decided (in designing the building) was about how to help undergraduates learn."

Peter Meldrum, a Westminster trustee and founder of the University of Utah's premier science spin-off company, Myriad Genetics, made a major donation for the project with his wife, Cathie.

"What's exciting about this science building is it's not just a building, not just bricks and mortar, glass and steel," Meldrum said. "It's really a transformational tool that will be used by Westminster faculty to continue to evolve from a teaching paradigm to a learning paradigm."

Bassis has encouraged that shift in all disciplines. The Meldrum Science Center caps off a 10-year campus master plan he has overseen since arriving at the college eight years ago.

Other gifts for the project, the most expensive in the college's history, came from John and Ginger Giovale, the George S. Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.

The building was designed by VCBO Architecture and built by Big-D Construction, both Salt Lake City companies.

Westminster has 220 science majors in biology, chemistry, physics and neuroscience.

e-mail: pkoepp@desnews.com