Area colleges getting bigger to feed call for more science

By Venice Buhain | The Olympian • Published August 06, 2007

Student demand and state economic needs for more science instruction at the college level means more laboratory space at all three South Sound colleges in the next two years.

As a state report on education emphasizes the need for more college opportunities in the research, technology and health science fields for economic development, local colleges are responding with upgrades and buildings:

• South Puget Sound Community College started last week on the $26 million construction of its new science building, which will be completed in early 2009.

The project will add a 51,000 square-foot building to its 15,000-square-foot science building to make a science complex. The new two-story facility will include seven laboratories that can be used by students studying science, health and nursing, engineering and horticulture. Physics and geology will be able to move to the science complex. There will also be new classrooms, offices, preparation space and storage.

• The Evergreen State College is renovating science labs in a $3.1 million project, which will open for fall quarter.

• A new $6 million general academic building at Saint Martin’s University will have engineering laboratories, which could open by fall 2008.

South Puget Sound’s expansion is coming at a time “when math and science education are so important and ... when health care needs are increasing for all of us,” college President Gerald Pumphrey said.

Administrators say construction is driven by the demand for courses emphasizing technology and health that will be needed for future careers.

“We’ve doubled the number of sections of general chemistry in the last five years,” said Eunice Robb, who until last year was dean of the Natural Sciences Division at SPSCC.

“We really are seeing a surge for students interested in allied health, but also for the students who are interested in transferring to a four-year college,” she said.

Melissa Letourneau, who enrolled in a South Puget Sound anatomy and physiology class to investigate whether she’s interested in going to medical school, said that most of her classmates are studying to be emergency medical technicians, physicians therapists or nurses.