Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 5)

ON CAMPUS An artist’s renderings show the new STEPS facility from the outside (left) and inside (top). campus plans LEHIGH TAKES LARGE STEPS ON ENVIRONMENT The university launches an $85 million multidisciplinary research and education initiative. Groundbreaking for the building is anticipated for late spring 2008, with a projected opening of June 2010. As interest in challenges related to energy, water, land use, and resource consumption grows, Lehigh University is launching an $85 million initiative to catalyze multidisciplinary research and education about the environment. The university’s Science, Technology, Environment, Policy & Society Initiative (STEPS) represents the largest undertaking of its kind in the school’s history. The new initiative is expected to generate breakthrough research on environmental issues while providing students with exceptional educational and research experiences. “The world faces signiﬁcant challenges to gauge the human impact on our environment and balance the ﬁnite resources of our planet,” says Alice P. Gast, Lehigh president. “These challenges play out on local, regional, national, and global scales.” In almost all areas, Gast adds, advances come at the intersections of disciplines—in environments where individuals from diverse perspectives interact daily. Lehigh will create such an environment through a new 130,000-square-foot, state-ofthe-art facility that will encourage collaborative research and teaching of environmental science, engineering, and policy, and will provide cutting-edge undergraduate science laboratories. Dork Sahagian, professor of earth and environmental sciences and director of the university’s multidisciplinary Environmental Initiative, believes the facility has an enormous potential to broaden students’ awareness of environmental issues. “A variety of different disciplines under the same roof adds a broader academic perspective than would be possible through any single dis- cipline or academic department,” he says. Moreover, he adds, the new facility will expose more students to teachings, research, and projects conducted within it. “No matter what their majors, all students should improve their understanding and awareness of the environment,” he says. “This facility is a huge step in that direction.” The building is the latest in a string of university investments in the sciences. In 2005, the Smith Family Center for Optical Technologies was opened, and in 2003 a facility was built to support bioscience research. Other components of the STEPS initiative include the creation of endowed chairs for faculty, undergraduate research fellowships, and endowed graduate fellowships for pre-doctoral students. The initiative will prepare the university, its faculty, and its students to face global challenges, says Anne Meltzer, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “This new program will allow collaborative teams of engineers and natural and social scientists to work together across disciplinary boundaries,” she says. “Scientists, engineers, and social scientists can debate and help shape environmental policy in productive and constructive ways.” Adds Gast, “This exceptional initiative will provide optimal resources for faculty and students. Investments in the new building, in endowed chairs, and in graduate and undergraduate research will provide long-term dividends in greater quality of life, enhanced human health, sounder national and international policies—in short, a better world and brighter future for all.”—Linda Harbrecht fall 2007 5

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Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

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