Lail Stockfish / Roundup
The Center for the Sciences (CFS) has brought state-of-the-art technology, unity amongst the science departments, and a pride worthy planetarium to the Pierce College campus, but not without sacrifice.
Professor of Biology, Pat Farris has had to close the doors and pack-up the contents of the long standing Life Science Museum, that she has curated for about eight years.
The room with the evolution depicting painting on the wall dated back to 1968 exhibited stuffed animals, geological artifacts and a 13 foot long, 8 foot tall accurate replica of an Allosaurus.
It was easily accessible and open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but according to Farris it was rarely used.
“I would use it for my bird watching class, and the Child Development Center would bring the little kids, but I don’t know if that many people really used it or if people even knew it was there,” said Farris.
According to the Pierce College website the CFS took “nine years of planning, designing and constructing [and] $57 million,” yet the museum, which is now mostly in storage, didn’t make the move due to a lack of space in the new CFS.
“We’re really limited with space down here because we’re sharing with so many departments,” she said.
Andrew Ramsay, deputy to the college project manager of Swinerton Inc., indicated in an email that the reason for the space constraint had to do with escalating prices from the time the original plans were produced in 2004 -2005 until the start of construction a few years later.
“Budget constraints dictated that the new facility could not incorporate all the space requirements of every department. The CFS user group task force (representing the various departments in the building) had to decide on its priorities and the final design of the building reflects those priorities,” he wrote in the e-mail.
While Farris expressed disappointment, she thinks the contents of the museum, that are being kept in storage, might get used more often by other teachers because they’re more accessible.
“It’s a little sad to see it go because it was our own little museum and somebody put a lot of work into it, but it is what it is, and at least other classes might use more of the specimens,” she said.
According to David Tsao, college project manager for Swinerton Inc., the “north-a-mall,” where the old science buildings are, is not set for construction until next month, in the mean time the life science department will be looking for a new home for that Allosaurus.
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