The Suzanne and Walter Scott, Jr. Bioengineering Building, the newest addition to the Colorado State University campus, will celebrate its grand opening on Sept. 12.
The celebration begins at 3 p.m. with a ribbon cutting and remarks by CSU officials including President Tony Frank, Dean of the College of Engineering David McLean, and former Dean Sandra Woods, who was instrumental in launching the project. The Scott Building is the second Engineering building on the Fort Collins campus.
“It’s been a long and complicated process, but thanks to the generosity of the Scotts, the students of Colorado State, and many, many other donors, the building is a reality, and one the campus can be proud of,” said Woods, who is now the dean of the college of engineering at Oregon State University.
An open reception for all attendees and tours of the new building will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Major donors will also be on hand for the event; however, Walter Scott will not attend due to the passing of Suzanne on Monday.
“The Scott Bioengineering Building, with its innovative design and state-of-the- art technologies, will allow us to better educate our students and better prepare them to make an impact on our world,” said President Frank. “We are enormously grateful to the students and donors – particularly Walter and Suzanne Scott — who believed in this project and made it such true success.”
Over two years in construction, the project formerly known as Engineering II began with an initial gift of $500,000 for architectural design from CSU alumni Don and Susie Law in 2010. Their gift is recognized in the Don and Susie Law Student Success Center, which will house student-focused retention programs, career development, and the Women and Minorities in Engineering Program.
Level 3 Communications Chairman Walter Scott, Jr., who earned his bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from CSU in 1953, and his wife Suzanne then committed $10 million to the construction of the building. An additional gift in 2012 brought their total donation to $12 million.
Their generosity in turn generated other major gifts, such as $1 million from the Denver-based Gates Family Foundation in support of the School’s interdisciplinary approach to solving global challenges through collaboration across academic fields.
Other Engineering alumni were also inspired by the Scotts, including Standard Foods Corp. CEO Ter Fung Tsao, who donated $550,000 to name the 130-seat auditorium in honor of his teacher and mentor, professor emeritus Jud Harper. Electrical engineering alumni Desi and Lisa Rhoden gave $250,000 to name the Biomedical Engineering Teaching Laboratory .
About the Scott Bioengineering Building
The $75-million, 122,000-square-foot building occupies the southeast corner of Laurel Street and Meridian Avenue. The Scott Bioengineering Building contains classroom and high-tech research space for about 40 faculty members in the disciplines of biomedical engineering; bioanalytic devices – sensors to detect a host of organic agents; synthetic biology, which works to solve problems related to the environment, health and energy; and environmental engineering.
The building, which has been built to LEED Gold standards, also includes teaching labs, design studios where student teams can work to solve specific problems, and a 24-hour study space.
Students played a major role in creating the new engineering building. In 2010, the CSU student body voted to impose a new student facility fee that provided $30 million in funding for the project. Engineering students were also deeply involved in planning and designing the building.
As a land-grant university, Colorado State is dedicated to providing access to higher education. CSU is committed to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest faculty and providing them the tools to perform cutting-edge research to solve some of the world’s most devastating problems.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by CSU News, Kate Hawthorne Jeracki.
