Photo courtesy of Mike Peters.
After two years of planning and construction, the start of the Fall 2015 semester marks the grand opening of the two newest schools on campus, the School of Business and the Center for Environmental and Life Sciences.
Both buildings have added valuable educational tools for students across campus. The new CELS building gives students access to state-of-the-art research laboratories and classrooms, while the new School of Business provides students with a variety of high-tech instructional spaces from lecture halls to seminar rooms, more parking and office space as well as audio and visual technologies to help enhance students’ learning experience.
To celebrate these new developments, President Susan Cole invited the campus community to the opening ceremony of the two buildings, where students and faculty alike explored the new facilities and enjoy the celebratory music provided by a DJ, guided tours and free food.
The 107,500 square foot science building cost a total of $55 million dollars and includes seven trans-disciplinary research labs, six core research labs, an electron microscopy suite, a nuclear magnetic resonance suite and a vivarium, an expansion that singlehandedly doubled Montclair State University’s total amount of scientific research infrastructure.
According to the school’s website, this extensive addition to Montclair State has allowed the school to increase the quality of the environmental science program and expand research in high demand, like the sustainable sciences, biochemistry and medicinal chemistry.
Both buildings were packed with people. On one side of campus students and faculty were exploring the classrooms, cafe and lounges at the School of Business, while on the other side of campus, other members of the community were admiring the laboratories, greenhouse and research centers of the CELS building.
The new Center for Environmental and Life Sciences offers a view of the New York City skyline, where students gathered to enjoy the view and hang out with their classmates.
Alaina Frank, a freshman Film major at MSU, said, “Even though I’m not a science major, the school is still really exciting. Everything is modern and sleek and the labs have so many resources for students to use. I bet it will make students who don’t like science more excited about taking a lab science class.”
Overall, the event was successful, filled with students seeing how the $102 million project has improved the campus. Students seemed happy with the result. Kareem Azer, a junior Theater Studies major, said, “They are some of the most high-tech buildings I’ve seen on a college campus, especially the new science building.”
The two new facilities have drawn staff and students alike to the new buildings and have excited a lot of members of the campus community. So far, the new additions on campus seem to be seen as a positive development and, according to Azer, a reason to be “proud to be a Red Hawk.”
