Campus Connection

Prairie Springs Science Center ceremony is 2 p.m. Thursday

UWL celebrates the $82 million Prairie Springs Science Center with an official dedication at 2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in The Bluffs in the nearby Student Union, 521 East Ave. N. Following a short program, faculty and students will be available during self-guided tours that will show a number of laboratories on each of the four floors of the new building. Faculty and students will be available to show the following areas: 1ST FLOOR

• Rooms 1001 & 1031 – Geography and Earth Science labs

with virtual watershed table and stream tables   2ND FLOOR

• Room 2010, 2013, 2015 –River Studies Center
• Room 2004 – Organic & Inorganic Chemical Synthesis lab

  3RD FLOOR

• Room 3009 & 3010 – Non-human physiology lab
• Room 3030, 3031, 3032 – Biochemistry lab

  4TH FLOOR

• Room 4011 – Microbiology lab suite
• Room 4040 – Molecular biology lab

Also expected to attend are the alumni, former faculty and staff who have areas named for them in the new building. The Prairie Springs: The Paul Fleckenstein Trust donated $2 million to support research and scholarship at UWL in the areas of environmental studies and education, wildlife habitat protection, wildlife protection, conservation and ecological technology. With the gift, the new $82 million science classroom and labs building is named the Prairie Springs Science Center.  

Features of the Prairie Springs Center

• Constructed with $82 million in state funds
• Construction began fall 2016, completed by fall 2018
• Approximately 187,000 square feet — greater in size than three football fields
• 36 state-of-the-art instructional laboratories
• 23 laboratories for faculty-mentored student research
• Three labs for cadaver-based study of human anatomy and physiology
• Microscope imaging facility, including scanning electron microscope
• Wet labs for aquatic science
• Facility for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
• Laboratories for food & industrial microbiology
• Supports programs in biology, chemistry & biochemistry, geography & earth science, microbiology, physics, River Studies Center, Radiation Center

 

College of Science and Health

• Current enrollment: 5,179 students
• 48 undergraduate and 23 graduate programs
• More than 50 percent of all UWL undergraduates are CSH majors
• 246 faculty with more than 70 percent hold a Ph.D. or terminal degree
• CSH grads job placement rate of 94 percent
• Two Department of Biology professors have received Carnegie Foundation’s Wisconsin Professor-of-the-Year Award
• Three departments awarded the UW Regents Teaching Excellence Award
• 175 undergraduates engage in faculty-mentored research each year
• Faculty & staff awarded more than $1.5 million annually in external grant funding
• Faculty & students publish more than 80 peer-reviewed research articles annually
• 98 percent average pass rate by students on professional certification exams
• CSH supports several inclusive excellence programs including the First Year Research Exposure and McNair Scholars