The learning and research under way at West VirginiaUniversitys new Life Sciences Building are among the building blocks in the states efforts to revamp the economy, Gov. Bob Wise said today (Oct. 17).


Wise joined WVU officials in dedicating the new $50 million, 190,000-square-foot home for the schools biology and psychology programs.


“This facility will produce scientists who may one day find a cure for cancer or advance our understanding of the mind,”the governor said.”It is this type of research we are trying to nurture on the state level to make West Virginia a hub for the biosciences industry.”


The Life Sciences Building opened this semester at the corner of Campus Drive and University Avenue in the loop where old Mountaineer Field once stood. Its eight floors contain classrooms, teaching and research labs, a 250-seat auditorium, 125-seat auditorium, community mental health center, herbarium and greenhouse.


WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr. noted that the dedication marked the completion of new construction in the first phase of a 10-year campus renewal program. Other new buildings include a $34 million StudentRecreationCenter that opened in July 2001 and a $37 million consolidated downtown library complex that opened in January.


“This is an exciting day for West VirginiaUniversity because the LifeSciencesBuilding culminates the first phase of a $250 million facilities master plan aimed squarely at meeting the needs of our students and positioning WVU as a national university,”Hardesty said.


The dedication ceremony also featured a bronze plaque unveiling, ribbon-cutting, tours of the facility and a reception on the ground-floor lobby.


The biology and psychology departments are the two largest programs in WVU s Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. The biology department has 732 undergraduate students (including 147 forensics-biology majors and pre-majors), 37 graduate students, 26 faculty and 14 staff; the department formerly occupied four floors in Brooks Hall, which dates back to 1951. The psychology department has 692 undergraduate students (majors and pre-majors), 74 graduate students, 23 faculty and six staff; the program moved to its new quarters from Oglebay Hall, which was built in 1918 for agricultural sciences.


Payette Associates of Boston was the architect for the Life Sciences Building, and Dick Corp. of Pittsburgh was the construction manager.