Page 5 - Spirit of Conway July 2016

RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION OF THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRATGAZETTE • SPIRIT OF CONWAY
SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2016
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WILLIAM HARVEY/RIVER VALLEY & OZARK EDITION
The Conway Corp. Center for Science will be the University of Central Arkansas’ new science building.The facility is a three-story, 50,000 square-foot building that will include larger classrooms with moveable elements to allow customizable teaching and learning.
on the side of the building at Bruce Street and Donaghey Avenue. Named Otis, the bear will be 15 feet long, 8 feet wide and weigh between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds, Massey said.
Johnston said a public installation of the bear will be scheduled.
Donaghey Hall is the cornerstone of the Donaghey District, which is designed to connect the university to the community by creating a mixed-use venue.
“One of the exciting things is, we formed the Donaghey District Task Force last year, and we are currently advertising for the master plan for the entire district, from College Avenue to Dave Ward Drive,” Johnston said.
“What’s cool is that it’s a blueprint of what’s to come for the next 50 years,” he said.
“We’re focusing on the eastern side of Dona- ghey and the master plan for that,” Johnston said. “We hope to have proposals for the board to look at by the Aug. 19 board meeting.”
He said one issue the board will have to de- cide is whether UCA is going to implement Greek Village Phase 2 for fraternity housing.
In another new feature on campus — the Conway Corp. Center for Science — students will be seeing stars.The Center for Science is a three-stor y, 50,000-square-foot addition to the 1960s Lewis Science Center, which is undergoing extensive remodeling.
A digital planetarium will provide a wow factor for students and guests.
Stephen Addison, dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, said the addition, sched- uled to open in January, will improve student learning.
He said the Lewis Science Center is the big- gest academic building on campus — almost 120,000 square feet, plus the 50,000-square-foot addition.
our introductory labs have been taught in rooms that were designed in the early 1960s and opened in 1965,” Addison said. “What that means is that computers in the laboratory weren’t even thought of, and computerized equipment was a dream at that point.The labs were set up in biology for somebody to sit and use a microscope....The labs were cramped for modern technology.
“The new building has been built so that the rooms are much larger, and it gives space to all the things you want to do. Everything is movable, and that makes a huge difference because not everybody teaches in the same way.”
The new facility will have a lot of transparency — literally.
“You walk in on the ground floor, and some rooms have glass corners, and you’ll be able to see what’s going on,” Addison said. “One of the thoughts behind this is, science is a public activity, and people often don’t get to see it in operation, but in this building, people will be able to walk down the corridors and see what’s going on. It’s a relatively new idea.
“And within the labs, as the building is com- pleted, we’ll be spending the fall filling it with equipment.The students will be able to use state- of-the-art equipment in all of the laboratories.”
Addison said the original planetarium opened in 1987.
“It’s been important to the schools across the state ever since then,” he said. “This new one will make it even better; this is actually a full digital theater. It’s not limited to projecting stars; you can project whatever you want — for instance, 3-D visualizations of circulator y systems.”
The Lewis Science Center’s renovation, which will begin later in the fall, will take several years, Ad- dison said, because the project will be done in stages.
“It will make a huge difference because many of
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