| Susan Kasten |
 |
| You can find more pictures of the construction of the Science Center here. |
For a brief period this year, two science buildings stood side-by-side on the western edge of the Beloit College campus. To the north was the new Center for the Sciences, its soaring glass atrium and light-filled open spaces taking shape against the bunker-like façade of the old Chamberlin Hall of Science, a few yards to the south.
Fencing ominously wrapped the perimeter of Chamberlin for awhile, as the building awaited and finally entered the process of “deconstruction.” The word may sound like a euphemism, but it accurately describes Chamberlin’s ultimate end.
The science hall known to Beloiters since it opened in 1968 was painstakingly taken apart so that its materials could be reused and recycled. Beloit’s goal was to put 5 percent or less of Chamberlin’s building materials into a landfill.
As the summer progressed, faculty residents of Chamberlin and South College scrambled to organize and pack up their offices and labs. Among the departments and offices slated to make the move to the Center for the Sciences, several had huge pieces of equipment to prepare for transport, such as a particle accelerator for physics and astronomy. The geology department had countless heavy rocks and samples to relocate, not to mention a meteor weighing more than 400 pounds.
While faculty still had a foothold in Chamberlin, a hundred different details were being attended to in the Center for the Sciences. In mid-July, movers descended on Chamberlin with carts, which faculty and students then packed full of books, models, and lab supplies. Movers pushed most of these mobile units by hand into the new building via plywood ramps. By the time the new furniture started arriving for the Center for the Sciences, first-year students were already moving into residence halls. Then the third week of August came, and the members of the class of 2012 seemed completely at home hanging out in the new facility during New Student Days.
The first official day of classes and labs in the Center for the Sciences occurred on Aug. 26, and the building hosted an inaugural student event in mid-September. That was when the Office of International Education brought the building’s atrium to life with an off-campus studies fair, drawing a large contingent of students to colorful booths. As the crowd mingled, a few tradespeople quietly finished off some details, and students enrolled in a course called “Buildings as Teachers”—taught by professors Robin Greenler and Brock Spencer—observed the way visitors used the space.
Alumni who attended Homecoming/Reunion 2008 toured the facility after a ribbon-cutting in late September, while the shell of Chamberlin still loomed just beyond. The Center for the Sciences was officially dedicated in October. The construction of an adjoining greenhouse and finishing touches to the exterior and grounds surrounding Beloit’s first green building are expected to be finished by June 2009.
