By David Adams | Echo
"Ritz on the Roof" Wednesday night seemed a fitting way to cap the Euler Science Complex's inaugural year. Seniors, dressed formally, meandered through the halls of the atrium eating, listening to music and mingling with their graduating classmates. Up top, on Euler's green roof, strings of lights illuminated the night as seniors gazed at campus from Taylor's most spectacular view.
Bill Toll, dean of the School of Natural and Applied Sciences (SNAS), is pleased with the way the building has been used this year.
Toll cited the space available for student-faculty research and more advanced labs than were previously possible as specific benefits Euler has extended to the SNAS. Several faculty members said the same.
"The gem of our new lab spaces is the instrumentation lab," said Daniel Hammond, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "All of our sophisticated instruments ... now live in a very bright, spacious lab, specifically designed with the infrastructure needed to support these instruments."
Hammond listed many students and classes that use the instruments in the lab-like environmental chemistry students analyzing water samples or forensic science students identifying a potentially toxic substance-as examples of the sheer number of new opportunities. Even a student from Ball State and high school students have come to take advantage of Euler's resources.
"It is a good feeling to see our equipment service so many people, not only in our own department but from many other departments," Hammond said.
Such good feeling are not limited to the third floor, home of the chemistry and biology departments. Euler's influ- ence is permeating.
One of those ideas, which White said remains unofficial, is a RoboCup team- in other words, robots that play soccer. A few years ago, a project of that size would not have been a possibility.
Euler's focus on sustainability has also made the building an interest to the community beyond Taylor. Kassie Jahr, Euler's director of facilities and program coordinator, led tours with seventh and eighth graders from Indianapolis, a Girl Scout group from Indy and second graders from West Noble Elementary. The tours included interactions with science faculty, a CSI-style crime lab and even a paper helicopter drop in the atrium.
"Collaboration makes us all stronger," Jahr said. She hopes for more tours and opportunities to collaborate in the fall.
As SNAS faculty prepare for a busy second year in Euler-including the addition of the new public health major, new engineering faculty and even new building residents as the Education Department moves into the lower level-a sense of gratefulness remains.
"When (Euler) was first announced- just the size of it and all-it was hard to believe that it was going to happen," White said, laughing. "The Lord certainly showed himself faithful through his people."
