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.
A year ago, Euler was an unfinished construction site. Today, it has become not only a center of academic excellence but also a gathering place for Taylor students.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.
"Psychologically, it has been a tremendous lift for all the profs in the building," said Art White, chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department. "We're starting to get some new ideas about things that we can do in the space that we have that we couldn't do before. Our new project room is an inviting place to work-students really appreciate that, too."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.
Although Jahr said educational opportunities like these got started slowly, due to preparing for the dedication service in the fall and funding issues for the schools, Jahr sees them as an opportunity for faculty to work together for the benefit of visiting groups."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."
