Described as early as 1813 as a place "where all the useful sciences should be taught," U.Va. is recommitting itself to science as it rounds out its second century. A Commission on the Future of the University has identified science and technology (among other areas -- the Commission's recommendations address what is learned and taught broadly) for attention now to build strength and further distinguish U.Va. The core reasons: determination to push forward the frontiers of knowledge in research that contributes to Virginia's and the nation's vitality, to use scarce resources effectively and efficiently, and to adopt the best known practices to deliver to students at all levels education and training second to none.
Last week, the Board of Visitors put its weight behind a comprehensive approach to enhancing the sciences when it approved three major research buildings for the sciences -- one for Medicine, one for Engineering, and one for the sciences in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Together, these buildings will add more than 195,000 square feet of research space to the already planned Engineering and Medical space, bringing the total capacity now being designed or built to some 300,000 square feet.
Buildings for research pose complex challenges. Academic construction can be painfully slow. One new building now under construction (MR 6, now named the Carter-Harrison Building, for cancer, study of the immune system, and infectious diseases) was first approved in 1999. Another (480 Ray C. Hunt Drive, first conceived as a model site for flexible research uses, since redesigned for specific research uses) was first proposed in 2002. Even without design changes during construction, unexpected construction delays, and additions, inflation alone has driven up the cost of both projects.
The new buildings just authorized must move timely and under tighter construction discipline than any projects ever before attempted. Scientists here needed them a decade ago when neither the state nor the University had money for projects of this kind and scale. Accordingly, University planners will work under a tight schedule for design (one year). Rather than beginning from scratch, they will analyze how other universities that have built major facilities in this time have done it, and adopt the most economical and best validated models to deliver these buildings on time and within reasonable cost limits.
That we must move in this direction and do it without mid-course design changes and delays comes as no surprise. Board and faculty leaders have heard advice from consultants and Commission members as we have worked toward a functional plan; from leaders of other universities, our competitors, as recently as Friday afternoon in the Rotunda's Dome Room; and from members of our own science faculty -- all convinced that the next step must include appropriate buildings.
The larger commitment involves both faculty stars and significant commitments to buildings for their work. The goal is to cultivate new or additional stars, including many already on our faculties but working in antiquated or too-small laboratories.
Hunter Rawlings III, former president of Cornell University and now a half-year professor of classics here, perhaps said it best on Friday. "The way you bring great scientists and develop great scientists in these very expensive fields is you have to build the buildings for them," Mr. Rawlings said. "That's the only way you're going to be successful."
The conversation about how to accomplish these goals has in some sense gone on here for decades. Serious work toward them began in the late 1990s during the Virginia 2020 planning process. Among other priorities, VA2020 defined the current multi-school initiatives in nanoscale technologies, morphogenesis, and digital technologies.
Since about 1998, we have explored constructing adaptive research and technology buildings -- structures designed to change as science needs change. In fact, we received state authorization to begin planning one such building (MR6) in 1999. Five years later, the Board of Visitors launched a program to attract world-class or "star" scientists who would have the capacity to distinguish U.Va. in the sciences and to accelerate achievement in our science programs.
These two initiatives -- hiring and cultivating extraordinary scientists and providing efficient research buildings when they are needed -- are the core elements of the plan disclosed to the Board last week. No single strategy meets every need. Adequate support for graduate students, including those not supported by research grants, growth in research sufficient to meet Virginia's and the nation's needs, and careful indexing to other universities' accomplishments, including their rates of growth in sponsored research, are essential if these two core strategies are to support the success to which President Rawlings referred.
Part two of University President John T. Casteen's two-part series on the sciences at the University will appear in tomorrow's issue.
Read More
CASTAGNO: Closing the Federal Executive Institute fails local residents
By Conall Costagno | 13 hours agoThe unwilling departure of the FEI from Charlottesville represents the severing of a constructive accord between the government and the University.
COHEN: Facing federal cuts, U.Va. must defend affordability
By Ryan Cohen | 2 days agoIn this uncertain environment, the University must act creatively and strategically to ensure it can maintain its commitment to affordability.
EDITORIAL: Commit to protecting noncitizens on Grounds
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoThis has grown into a pattern of failing the rights of noncitizens to due process and overstepping judicial checks and balances on the executive branch.
