To Future Generations: Is Science Building
Still a Place of Wonder?
By Bruce Congdon
On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, Seattle Pacific
University dedicated its new Science Building. As part of the ceremony,
SPU placed a time capsule in the building, with instructions for
it to be opened in 50 years. One of the documents enclosed was
a letter from Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Bruce Congdon.
A professor of biology at SPU for 18 years before becoming dean
this summer, Congdon was instrumental in shaping the vision for
the new structure. Here are his thoughts for students, faculty
and alumni in 2053.
May 7, 2003
Dear Time Capsule Openers,
It is a beautiful spring morning, and I am looking out of my window
in the Miller Science Learning Center south across Nickerson Street.
What I see rising there is the culmination of almost 10 years
of planning and work by faculty, staff, architects, engineers and
construction workers.
The new biology-chemistry building stands in its pristine
beauty, full of promise and hope for the students and faculty who
will begin using it in a few months. The lab furnishings
are installed. The water, gas, vacuum and fume hoods are
all running. But no classes have been taught there nor experiments
conducted. It waits there, beckoning the biology and chemistry
faculty as if to a promised land.
The vision for this building was to create a culture of discovery.
We wanted to create a place that would bring together all the “reactants” necessary
for successful education in the sciences. We wanted undergraduate
research laboratories that would provide an effective and special
space for students to do scientific experiments under the guidance
of faculty mentors. We wanted teaching labs designed for the particular
technical needs of teaching the range of subdisciplinary specializations
in chemistry, biology and experimental psychology. We wanted a
place that by its configuration would catalyze collaborations among
colleagues, faculty and students alike. In an age when information
technology — World Wide Web, email, digitized images and
wireless communication — was being heralded as an immanent
replacement for mentoring and conversations between live people,
we chose to design a building that would enhance relationships,
while using advances in technology to their fullest. We were also
committed to the ongoing journey of integrating Christian faith
with science. We saw this happening on several levels. By doing
the best science we could, and by being intentionally faithful
to Jesus Christ, we sought a personal integration. That is,
we wanted to be and to train highly competent scientists, science
teachers and health professionals who were also deeply committed
to Christian love and truth. We also worked at a philosophical
level, wrestling with doctrinal questions and ethical dilemmas
that science created or magnified. We envisioned the integration
at the vocational level as well: What difference could each of
us, faculty and graduates, make in the world of work, community
and family as bearers of the light of the gospel?
I wonder whether our visions were fulfilled. Can you detect the
effects of our vision in what this building is doing now? Is there
still a sense of excitement about discovering the mechanisms of
God’s world? Is this building still a place of curiosity
and wonder, discipline and creativity? I hope and pray that it
is so.
I wonder about where some of our arguments have taken you. Has
Genesis theology managed to absorb the scientific knowledge of
a vastly old earth and the life evolving on it? Is the idea of
a self-organizing universe a theo-logically and philosophically
rich one as I suspect today that it will become? Was embryonic
stem cell research ultimately successful in delivering on its promise
of curing diseases? Or was it rejected completely on ethical grounds?
What has the Human Genome Project accomplished? We are just now
speculating on that. Some think it will open the door to a better
life for everyone. Others fear that genetic information will be
used to invade our personal privacy at the deepest level, or that
future generations will be genetically made to order. How is that
turning out?
As I ponder these unknowns, and as you laugh at my naïveté,
I just hope that you still sense the great effort of love and vision
that was invested in this structure. I hope that your parents and
their parents were enriched by the opportunity for inquiry and
training that this building provided to them. I hope that the living
one, Jesus Christ, is still at the center of University life, and
that being a Christian in your era means not only believing in
the truth of the gospel, but also having the strength and courage
to explore, to learn, to question, to listen, to respect, to discover,
to hope and to love.
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