New Earth And Marine Sciences Building Dedicated At UC Santa Cruz

Building Forms The Heart Of Burgeoning Research Programs That Focus On Geosciences, The Marine Realm, And The Environment

SANTA CRUZ, CA–A gleaming new building has joined the growing complex of facilities upon "Science Hill" at UC Santa Cruz: the $29.5 million Earth and Marine Sciences Building, dedicated November 12 in private ceremonies on campus.

Located just below Natural Sciences 2 and above McHenry Library, the building contains offices and laboratories for about 175 faculty, researchers, and graduate students in the departments of earth sciences, marine sciences, the Institute of Tectonics, and the Institute of Marine Sciences. The latter institute, the largest organized research unit at UCSC, oversees the Joseph M. Long Marine Laboratory and includes numerous affiliated biologists.

Residents of the building garnered about $9.2 million in external research grants last year, 28 percent of the campus total. Their fields of study represent a growing focus for the Monterey Bay Area. Indeed, the building anchors the northern end of a web of scientific institutions around the bay, where collaborative research has blossomed in recent years.

"The completion of this building has been the most singular event in the history of these programs, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," says associate vice chancellor for research James Gill, a professor of earth sciences. "The faculty got to design their own labs, but more than that, it created momentum and visibility and the opportunity to grow, to add faculty and equipment. We maintained optimism and forward thinking, which is anomalous on a campus that is downsizing."

Previously, it often was necessary for students and staff to go elsewhere to use specialized equipment, says Gill. Now, however, with new labs and state-of-the-art equipment to fill them, the departments are better equipped in several research areas than all but a few universities in the world.

The building also houses a 270-seat lecture hall, two 50-seat classrooms, the Microscopy and Imaging Laboratory, five spacious teaching labs, and the Norman and Gertrude Pendleton mineral collection–displayed in a small museum open to the public. With 84,000 assignable square feet, the building has opened up significant amounts of laboratory and office space for expansion in other facilities, most notably Applied Sciences.

The building is designed to enhance interactions among its occupants, says professor of marine sciences Kenneth Bruland. A distinctive feature is the conspicuous separation of the two wings of faculty offices and the two large laboratory blocks. One result of this design, Bruland says, is that faculty share information in the hallways near their offices and collaborate with researchers from other departments in neighboring labs.

Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, had to balance many concerns as chair of the building committee during five years of planning and construction. "We had to make sure the space fit the special needs of faculty members, but also was generic enough that other researchers could move in as faculty left or retired," he says. "My sense is the laboratory and office arrangements are working out. Everyone is excited and happy about the building."

While the customized labs are delighting researchers, the teaching facilities, together with new equipment, have improved undergraduate education as well. Gone are the days of the old teaching labs that housed many types of classes, which limited the range of each class. In the new building, each lab is devoted to one activity, such as student microscope work or identification of geologic samples.

Dedication ceremonies were open to the campus community and alumni but not to the general public, because of limited space. In the formal ceremony, speakers included Chancellor Karl Pister and Mike Field, chief of the Branch of Pacific Marine Geology of the U.S. Geological Survey. Following the dedication, guests received tours of the building and heard updates on the research programs it houses.

Earlier in the day, members of the Institute of Tectonics recognized the W. M. Keck Foundation by unveiling plaques for two lab facilities: the W. M. Keck Seismological Laboratory and the W. M. Keck High-Intensity X-Ray Facility. The names honor nearly $1 million in grants from the Keck Foundation to the Institute of Tectonics since 1986.

Among the many contributors to the realization of the Earth and Marine Sciences Building were former deans of natural sciences William Doyle and Frank Drake; faculty members John Pearse, Lynda Goff, and Leo Ortiz (biology), Karen McNally, Gary Griggs, and Jim Gill (earth sciences), and Ken Bruland (marine sciences); Patricia Ponzini, operations analyst for natural sciences; Fran Owens of Planning and Budget; and specialists Dan Sampson of earth sciences and Rob Franks of marine sciences.