Fort Lewis College Annual Reports Summer Issue 2014 | Page 4

Dr. David Gonzales
Chair, Department of Geology
“With the new building, all of our
students and faculty will have modern
resources with which to develop stronger
learning experiences as well as to advance and apply fundamental knowledge
to solve real-world problems. Our goal is
send forth graduates from FLC with the
ability to make the world a better place.
We truly believe the building represents
an investment in the future of Colorado
and the Four-Corners region.”

A

ppropriately enough, understanding the
need for a new Geosciences, Physics and Engineering building is all about understanding the numbers.
These aren’t intimidatingly complex numbers such as
you might find in equations describing gravitational
attraction, or predicting the stress tolerance of a given
mechanism, but simple, commonsense numbers that
define the everyday experience of the sciences at Fort
Lewis College:
The first set of integers to examine are those of age.
Berndt Hall was built in the late 1960s, at a time
when Fort Lewis was a small liberal arts college that
dreamt of being more. Berndt Hall has only 16,650
SF of utilizable space, and boy, is it being utilized.
Every nook and cranny is filled. Contrast this
with the new building–58,414 SF of glorious
room, allowing full exploitation of everything the
sciences require.
The School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences has
seen a 38% growth in enrollment, and 1,700 students
enrolled in STEM majors at FLC in Academic Year
2012/13.
FLC is 1st in the nation among institutions of higher
education in the number of baccalaureate degrees
awarded to Native American students and 2nd in
the nation in the number of Science, Engineering,
Technology, and Math (STEM) baccalaureate degrees
awarded to Native American students. Lastly, the
Engineering Department, one of only 17 programs
in the nation to be accredited by the Accreditation
Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) has
seen its enrollment leap 177% in the past five years.
In short, they have come. We need to build it.
A third folio relevant to our cause are those
related to keeping students around. No matter
how good FLC’s programs and faculty are, if the
facilities are left wanting, students will look elsewhere
in short order. Happily, the reverse is also true. The

GPE building is the fourth and final phase of science
infrastructure improvements that began in 1995.
Phase III, the Biology building, was completed in
2010, and that improvement resulted in an enrollment growth of 16%.
Current laboratory spaces, which, again, were originally constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, do not
have adequate floor area or proper room configurations to accommodate larger class sizes of 50.
The current maximum classroom size is a scant 36
students, and the current hall functions poorly by
today’s standards of health and safety codes.
The final set of figures to consider are, unsurprisingly,
about money. Money needed to complete the building, yes, but more importantly, the money that our
students can earn as a graduate of Fort Lewis College.
There is a critically important national shortage of
science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
graduates, as well as the need to diversify the STEM
workforce. Fort Lewis is part of the solution to that
problem.
Dr. Ryan Haaland, Chair of the Engineering Department, sums it up well:
“Thanks to grants supporting the STEM disciplines, we’ve acquired state-of-the-art laboratory
and machining/fabricating equipment. First and
foremost, the new building provides the space in
which to conduct laboratories and use this equipment safely. That space also facilitates student
access to this equipment and provides them handson experience that makes them highly competitive
in the job market.”
Graduates in the natural resources and mining industries will earn 37% more than any other profession in
the Four Corners Region. According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics for La Plata County, Colorado,
the average annual income for natural resources
and mining is $85,624 compared to the next highest
income of $53,369 for information technology.

Dr, Ryan Haaland
Chair, Department of Engineering

Yet success is not measured by figures alone. There
are deep benefits both locally and nationally to the
construction of a new hall, including:

“We are very excited about what the GPE
building means to the future of our programs, our campus, and, most importantly,
our students. The building has been in
the design phase for a number of years, so
it is a long-time coming. We established
the need for the building before our the
existence of our new engineering program
(BS Engineering.) The tremendous growth
of our programs makes that need even
more acute.”

• K-12 local schools will be able to use public geologic history displays to educate students about mineral,
rock, and dinosaur displays from about the region.
• The only seismic monitoring in SW CO will be
completed at the school, data from which will be used
to understand the effect of disposal of water from
oil and gas extraction to educate local stakeholders
about the effect of disposal of water from oil & gas
extraction.
• Construction will allow admittance into the Falcon
Telescope Network, led by the U.S. Air Force Academy Center for Space Situational Awareness. The
partnership will be the first of its kind in the world.
When tracking space debris, multiple telescopes will
view and track the debris from different locations at
the same time.
That’s unique. And that’s what the GPE building is all
about. Academic excellence, service to the community, and opportunity for our students.
The cost of construction is $35,314,620. FLC is receiving funding from the State of Colorado to the tune
of $31,082,646, $10 million granted so far. As you
can see, we’re a little short. Fort Lewis College needs
$4,231,974 in private funding to complete our science
upgrades, and that’s where you come in.
It’s quite obvious that FLC has a bright future in the
sciences, and we are in no doubt that our Alumni and
donors will step up to the plate. Communications
from the Foundation in the very near future will be
forthcoming, letting you know how you can help us
make it all add up.

Click on the above for a video presentation of Fort Lewis College’s newest building, the GPE Sciences Hall, to be built over the next two years with funding
from the State of Colorado, and donors, and alumni just like you

Fort Lewis College’s Geosciences, Physics & Engineering Building
is a go at last, but there remains much to be done

Engineering Opportunities

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