Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

The planning process for the Sciences will include the "reinvention" of the Reiss Science Center to better support the mission of science teaching and research on the Main Campus.

"Our faculty researchers and their student collaborators face a critical space shortage at the very time that research projects require more physical space and more sophisticated instrumentation to advance promising discoveries."

When University President John J. DeGioia talks about Georgetown’s next fundraising campaign, he focuses on a number of major points: endowing faculty positions, building funds for student scholarships, and transforming the sciences through a new building and additional faculty positions.

The sciences will figure prominently in the campaign because science research and education is central to our identity as a student-centered research university. Beyond merely planning for an additional building, the University is engaged in developing a “Master Plan” for the sciences that includes a strategy for facilities construction and renovation, for faculty growth, and curricular expansion.

"Strengthening science education and research is, for us," DeGioia said at last Spring's faculty convocation, "a means of ensuring that we continue to do what we do best as a student-centered research institution whose primary mission is the advancement of knowledge and the formation of leaders."

Georgetown is at a critical juncture in science research. A comparison of our science programs with those at peer institutions shows that our facilities and the size of our faculty lags behind other programs.

Most pressing is the shortage of up-to-date teaching and research laboratory space. According to Jane McAuliffe, Dean of Georgetown College, “our faculty researchers and their student collaborators face a critical space shortage at the very time that research projects require more physical space and more sophisticated instrumentation to advance promising discoveries.”

Recent improvements have begun to ease the space crunch for some. Most notably, the organic chemistry teaching and research labs will move to renovated space in the Basic Science Building on the Medical Center campus and the Departments of Mathematics and Computer Science moved last summer to fresh facilities in St. Mary’s Hall.

Aside from the lack of space, science research has transformed itself from a world of projects “siloed” in separate departments to one of cross-disciplinary research. Ideally, researchers from a range of departments work side-by-side and share equipment and ideas. Georgetown already hosts a number of interdisciplinary research centers, but their ideal physical proximity and further integration are currently hindered by their inability to grow any further in size.

Planning for a new science center and for the reinvention of Reiss is underway with the hope that phase one of construction could begin as early as 2008. The planning process draws upon the expertise of a large number of faculty, administrators, and outside consultants and architects.

Expanding curricular offerings and accommodating science core requirements across the four undergraduate schools will be central to the goals of the planning. All students will need science competency to face a technologically complex world, whether they enter leadership positions in the government, cultural, or business sectors. The current faculty size cannot accommodate the courses required to teach core science courses for every undergraduate at Georgetown. Benefits of the curricular expansion include a greater selection of electives and more opportunities for interdisciplinary teaching and research.

It is anticipated that the College science departments will need to expand by over 35 new faculty members in the next 10 years to meet this demand. The faculty expansion will facilitate additional opportunities for undergraduates to conduct research projects with faculty mentors, a hallmark of the Georgetown science education.

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