Members of the Class of 1954 pose on one of the stairways in the facility that they helped fund.

Yale formally dedicates Environmental Science Center

Faculty and alumni gathered recently to dedicate The Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center, an interdisciplinary facility that is part of Yale's $500 million investment to maintain its research and teaching leadership in science and engineering. The Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center, which now stands on Sachem Street as the gateway to Science Hill, will play a central part in Yale's effort to illuminate humans' understanding of the natural world and how it can best be sustained through sound management and wise public policy. "The Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center will bring faculty and students from different departments and schools together to foster discovery and learning that will add to our knowledge and appreciation of the biosphere," said President Richard C. Levin. "It is the first milestone in our ambitious plan to ensure that Yale's fourth century brings continued advancement in science and engineering." Speakers at the dedication ceremony reflected on the new building's role as a spur to collaboration among scholars and students in different environmental disciplines. They included Richard L. Burger, director of the Peabody Musuem of Natural History; James Gustave Speth, dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; and Karl K. Turekian, director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies (YIBS). Design encourages collaboration The Class of 1954 Environmental Science Center is designed to encourage collaboration among faculty and students pursuing environmental studies, while placing the collections of the Peabody Museum at their fingertips. In addition to housing curators, staff and collections of the Peabody Museum, the Center provides laboratories, classrooms, offices and curatorial spaces. It will be the home of YIBS, and accommodate the faculty and students from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences' Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology and Geophysics, and Anthropology, and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. "'Global environmental challenges' are buzz words for some, perhaps, but in truth we know those challenges are daunting," said Provost Alison F. Richard. "Yale has now, and will continue to have, a deep, moral responsibility to educate leaders who will take up the gauntlet as scientists, policy makers, teachers, resource managers and citizens. The center will be hugely important in helping us to do this, for it brings together an interdisciplinary gathering of faculty and students in a purposeful and powerful way, with a record of life at hand, quite literally within reach." Facilities for the storage and curatorship of Peabody Museum collections account for about half the space within the building, and hallways connecting the Environmental Science Center and the Peabody Museum on each level will facilitate communication and academic interaction among all those studying the environmental sciences at Yale. Peabody collections will be stored in the building at the optimum temperature and humidity for their extended preservation. "Over the next two years, the Peabody's staff will move several million specimens into the building," Burger said. "To give you some idea of their volume, these materials could fill some 56 tractor trailers." The building is named for the Yale College Class of 1954, which gave the University $70 million in 2000 to support new science buildings and other major Yale priorities. The Environmental Science Center was supported with $25 million from the Class of 1954 gift. The Environmental Science Center is the first of five new buildings to support the sciences at Yale. In addition, as part of Yale's $500 million investment, new buildings will be constructed for chemistry, engineering, forestry & environmental studies, and molecular, cellular and developmental biology . "Science Hill is evolving into a hub for the interdisciplinary study of and research on environmental issues," said Speth. During the dedication ceremony, Yale recognized the efforts of alumnus and Yale Corporation member Edward P. Bass, who helped establish and shape the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, is co-chair of the Leadership Council at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and continues to be greatly involved in Yale's overall environmental initiatives. Bass, who had attended the groundbreaking for the building, an event that featured a band, said, "Today, we don't need a band, we have a building." Bass joined other speakers in praising the efforts of Richard, who in addition to serving as Provost is also the Franklin Muzzy Crosby Professor of the Human Environment and professor of anthropology, to help make the new building a reality, stating that she was responsible for "the greening of the Blue." The Environmental Science Center was designed by David M. Schwarz Architectural Services, Inc. of Washington, D.C. 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