Because science at PLNU energizes intellectual rigor with a heartfelt call to change the world, you will also be helping to improve the lives of thousands of people who will be served by the skills and sensitivity of PLNU students. It is a distinctive opportunity, a chance to make a difference that comes along perhaps once in a generation.
Philanthropic support is essential to success. The budget for construction of the new science facility and renovation of the existing facilities has been set at $40 million. Rather than burdening students with tuition increases or incurring the high costs of debt financing, PLNU is seeking strategic philanthropic investment by those with the vision to see tomorrow – and the will to help shape it.
Your gift will be a legacy of enduring impact, yielding significant results again and again. You will be there when new discoveries are made, patients are helped and healed, generations of young scientists inspired. The lives of thousands of people will be improved, thanks to your generosity.
In so many ways, you will be transforming the future. For good.
Please make your gift to the Campaign for the Sciences today.
Tomorrow won't be the same without you.
Timely Solution
The Campaign for the Sciences is a timely solution to pressing problems. Over the years, instructional and laboratory space has become outmoded and overcrowded. Faculty members struggle to teach the subtleties of 21st century science in facilities built during the decade of Sputnik.
Despite the fact that many different science disciplines utilize the building on a daily basis, the current facilities contain just four labs. Laboratory equipment must be set up and broken down, set up and broken down, several times a day, five days a week. Besides obvious inefficiencies, lack of lab space is an obstacle to fruitful research; complex experiments requiring uninterrupted running time are difficult to complete.
Space constraints compromise upgrading of instrumentation and other equipment since there is no room for acquisition of new lab technology. Several firms have offered gifts of instrumentation, only to be reluctantly told there is nowhere for donated equipment to go. Also, lab equipment is inefficiently configured, wasting time and space.
And while the PLNU student body has increased by 40 percent during the past ten years alone, there is no appropriate space for additional teaching staff. New faculty members are housed in a collection of trailers. Converting second and third floor restroom space into faculty offices was once considered!
What's more, the current science building is dingy, unappealing, and cut off from the campus community by its steeply sloping asphalt driveway and subterranean main entrance. The building isn't environmentally friendly. The summer honors weekend for high school science students who have expressed an interest in PLNU begins in business school classrooms. Only after hearing about the science program are prospective students shown the realities of the current facilities. Many say labs at their high schools are superior to science space at PLNU.
The Building
Nothing less than an exciting renaissance, the Campaign for the Sciences will comprise two phases: construction of a new science facility and renovation of the current science building.
New 35,000 square foot science
facility will: |
Modernization of the current science building will achieve: |
| Provide 14 advanced labs devoted to biology and chemistry. |
Updated classroom space. |
| Contain one of the few "clean rooms" in San Diego available for undergraduate research. |
Construction of new laboratories for field biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science. |
| Include four new classrooms accommodating a total of 130 students. |
Conversion of current exterior stairways on the second and third floors into alcoves where students will gather. |
| Conveniently cluster preparation and storage space. |
Faculty offices adjacent to student gathering places will foster educational give-and-take; large windows will lend literal meaning to the concept of transparency. |
| Deliver the benefits of new instructional techniques with flexible labs, new media, and distance learning. |
Connecting the existing science building
with the new science facility and the main campus walkway will be an eye-catching pedestrian bridge. |
| Effectively configure existing equipment and provide space for acquisition of new equipment. |
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| A striking outdoor deck will attract students from everywhere on campus, prompting conversations and peer-to-peer learning. |
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