Baylor To Dedicate Sciences Building Friday
Baylor University will officially dedicate its world-class science teaching and research facility - the $103.3 million Baylor Sciences Building - at 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 24, on the outdoor plaza that adjoins the McLane Student Life Center. The building is located at the corner of University Parks Drive and Bagby Avenue on the Baylor campus.
In the event of rain, the ceremony will be held inside the atrium of the sciences building. A reception and tours of the building will follow the dedication. KWBU-TV will provide a mult-box for media to receive a clean audio feed of the ceremony.
Participating in the ceremony will be Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr.; Dr. Wallace L. Daniel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. David L. Jeffrey, provost and vice president for academic affairs; Dr. Ben Pierce, professor of biology who oversaw the academic planning for the facility; and Truman Scholar Kristin Kan, a pre-med senior from Arlington.
The 508,000-square-foot Baylor Sciences Building consolidates the science disciplines of chemistry, biology, geology, physics and neurology, as well as most of Baylor's prehealth programs, and houses a complement of classrooms and lecture halls, teaching and research laboratories, and faculty, graduate student and administrative offices.
The Baylor Sciences Building also includes five multidisciplinary research centers on Prehealth Education, Drug Discovery, Molecular Biosciences, Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research, and Scientific Analysis and Computing.
In celebration of the dedication, the College of Arts and Sciences will host a "Science Symposium" at 7:30 p.m. tonight (Sept. 23). The event at the Baylor Sciences Building will feature Dr. James T. Willerson, president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston ("Stem Cells for Failing Hearts"); Dr. Curtis J. Richardson, a Duke University ecologist ("Wetlands of Mass Destruction"); and Dr. John H. Schwarz, a Cal Tech physicist ("Superstring Theory: Past, Present, and Future").