An Outstanding Environment for Learning & Research

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 04:00:00 -0400
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Celebrating an Innovative Environment for Learning & Research

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.

When UMBC renames its newly renovated chemistry and biochemistry building as the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building on October 21, the campus will celebrate both a transforming philanthropy and an innovative training center for the next generation of chemists and biochemists.

The chemistry building renovations benefit all UMBC chemistry and biochemistry students and faculty. “The renovations bring world class, state-of-the-art instructional and research laboratories to undergraduate and graduate students,” said Ralph Pollack, chair and professor of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry department. “We’re especially pleased that the new laboratories’ layouts allow for improved safety and increased interaction between students and faculty.”

The building design encourages communication, mentoring and shared research through flexible, interconnected laboratory spaces for research, clustered faculty offices, a tutorial center, space for small discussion and problem solving groups and a bridge connecting students and faculty with life sciences colleagues in the Department of Biological Sciences. The facility houses state-of-the-art teaching laboratories and outstanding research and teaching instrumentation, such as a new mass spectrometry facility, a laser laboratory and a suite of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers.

With the renaming of the chemistry building, the University honors the Meyerhoffs for founding the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC in 1988 to address the under-representation of African American men in the sciences and engineering.

Since then the program has produced nearly 600 graduates who are minorities or are dedicated to advancing representation of minorities in the sciences, literally changing the face of science in America. Program graduates go on in large numbers to the country’s most prestigious graduate and professional schools, placing UMBC among the top predominantly white institutions nationally in producing minority bachelor’s degree recipients who go on to earn a Ph.D.

Similar achievements have been made among chemistry and biochemistry students and alumni broadly. The department has been ranked among the top 25 producers of chemistry undergraduates of all backgrounds. Paula Grabowski ’76, now a biology professor at University of Pittsburgh, is a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, and her husband, Joe Grabowski ‘78, heads Pitt’s National Science Foundation Research Program for Undergraduates. More than 50 of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry graduates and postdocs have gone onto faculty positions at institutions including Harvard, Yale, Penn, UC-Davis, Virginia Tech and the Universities of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

These achievements would not be possible without the University’s outstanding chemistry and biochemistry faculty, who are devoted to both teaching and research. Their scientific and scholarly achievements attract almost $5 million in funding per year, resulting in many opportunities for students to participate in undergraduate research in their labs and to gain exposure to cutting-edge science in their classrooms.

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.