Science Center

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For more than 100 years, Azusa Pacific University has trained and challenged students to actively engage in the issues of the day with a Christ-centered worldview. Nowhere is this more important today, and as we look to the future, than in the sciences. The need for trained scholars and practitioners in science and medicine has never been greater, and the engagement of faith and science never so important.

APU’s new Science Center, at a cost of $54 million, will be the latest signature building on campus, and serves as the centerpiece of current capital projects. This center represents more than just a first-class, 71,000-square-foot, three-story facility that will be an epicenter for transformational scholarship, but a statement of intent to the future, a pledge to provide the best resources to students, and a commitment to the regional and national community.

Located on Foothill Boulevard on West Campus, the Science Center is scheduled to open in summer 2009, and will house the Department of Biology and Chemistry and the Department of Mathematics and Physics, along with research and teaching components for the School of Nursing and Department of Physical Therapy.

The facility will include a 90-seat lecture hall, 23 discipline-specific classrooms, 3 general-purpose classrooms, 37 teaching and research laboratories, NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) and electron microscope rooms, an animal research facility, faculty offices, student study and community areas, and APU’s Center for Research in Science.

Why Now?

Conceptual Rendering

The Carl E. Wynn Science Center on East Campus, dedicated in February 1976, was built to serve a little more than 2,000 students and 10 faculty members. Thirty years later, the number of students majoring in math and science and anticipating careers in medicine, physical therapy, and other health care professions has soared from 8 to 326, faculty membership to 48, and the student body of 8,128 far outnumbers the 2,167 students attending more than three decades ago. Given the current inadequate space, the university has already made remarkable accomplishments, and it is exciting to imagine what will be done with an expansive new facility.

In a February 2007 task force report to Governor Schwarzenegger, the California Council on Science and Technology outlined: “The state is facing a serious shortage of fully prepared science and mathematics teachers . . . California is at a crossroads, and executive decisions made in the near term will shape the future and determine whether or not we stay at the vanguard of research and discovery while maintaining an economy that thrives on California-based creativity, informed risk taking, and investment in innovation.”

APU has a voice and a contribution to make in response to this need, especially through the 7,300 square feet of new labs in the Science Center dedicated to research and development in the areas of math, science, and advanced technology.

Who Benefits?

Current and Prospective Students
A new facility, with its dramatically expanded resources—class and lab space, as well as new research equipment—will have a significant impact on student access to classes, exposure to research, and the ability to attract and recruit new students. The center will enable tomorrow’s doctors, teachers, geneticists, engineers, nurses, dentists, physical therapists, and scientists to apply APU’s signature brand of Christian leadership in a field at times filled with ethical and moral ambiguity.

Faculty and Research
The prominent new Science Center will enhance APU’s institutional and academic reputation. Alongside the faculty’s commitment to teaching and student mentoring, a technically advanced and well-equipped science facility will increase the scope and productivity of research by current professors—all of whom hold doctoral degrees—and attract more of the nation’s best to teach, research, and innovate. APU’s ability to attract research funding and investment will also be significantly enhanced through this facility.

Community
For years, APU has sought to increase local access for young people to the sciences. Each year, local students attend enrichment math and science classes, middle school GATE Program students are stretched through special classes, and high school students enroll in rigorous preparatory courses and complete summer research projects to expand their knowledge and earn college credit. The opportunity to partner with local schools to access equipment that far surpasses strapped school district budgets—such as NMR and electron microscopes—will make a huge contribution to the scholarship of our community.

As the most fiscally significant undertaking in the university's history, the new Science Center will place APU at the vanguard of academic excellence in the new century, preparing qualified graduates to serve in the vital fields of science, education, and health care.

To learn more about the project and how you can give, contact the Office of University Advancement at (626) 815-5333 or development@apu.edu.