By Michael Del Castillo
CUNY’s Medgar Evers College has opened a new $247 million School of Science, Health and Technology building on the former site of a sanitation garage. The building, known as Academic Building I, expands the college’s growing campus and is a milestone in Brooklyn’s transformation into a center for scientific learning and industry.
“This building is going to raise the community up in science,” said Congresswoman and Brooklyn native, Yvette Clark. “People will be coming from around the world to be educated right here on the campus that is being unfolded right before our eyes.” Speaking at the ribbon cutting ceremony, Clark said, “There’s nothing that makes me prouder than to say that Medgar Evers has a campus. I remember growing up when it only had a building.”
Academic Building I is the centerpiece of the still evolving campus, formerly a scattered collection of buildings in the neighborhood. Dean Mohsin Patwary, says the school has already received permission from the city to permanently close Crown Street between Bedford Ave. and Franklin Ave. Fences around the buildings will be removed and the street itself will be converted into a grassy field.
“The campus we are forming here, it’s a nice little campus,” he said. “It’s the first time since Medgar Evers was founded that the students know what a campus feels like.”
“It was a breath of fresh air,” said Kirton Lashley who now takes a biology course in the new Academic Building I. The new facilities have been available for classes since Aug 27.
The building’s 14 instructional labs have almost doubled Brooklyn’s collegiate research capabilities, with Brooklyn College providing an additional 15 labs. Among the advanced scientific equipment the building offers is the first DNA sequencer available to college students anywhere in Brooklyn.
The state-of-the-art equipment not only educates students, it attracts top quality teachers to Brooklyn, according to school officials.
“If you don’t have scholarship you don’t have academia,” Patwary said. He believes a successful school shouldn’t only measure success by its ability to educate, but by its ability to create opportunity for teachers. “You have to give the faculty a chance to grow too,” he said. “If you want to hire top notch scientists you have to give top notch support.”
Patwary tells the story of how one of his new professors, Dr. Michele Vittadello, was hired. Vitadello was conducting research for the Air Force, which required some expensive specialized equipment. “He told me, to do my work [at Medgar Evers] I will need $200,000 in equipment,” Patwary said. So Patwary got the school to add funds for the equipment to the budget of the new building. Dr. Vittadello accepted the job.
“The community contributes to the school as much as the school contributes to the community, says Patwary” The mutually beneficial relationship between the school and the neighborhood is expected to translate into jobs for students as well.
Patwary is excited about possible career opportunities and research internships arising from a project run by Dr. Alam Nur-E-Kamal, a biology professor, in conjunction with the newly developed Biotech Park just minutes away. Kamal currently researches mammalian stem-cells and their possible applications to cancer research.
Dr. Eva Brown Cramer, vice president for biotechnology and scientific affairs at Biotech Park says, “Brooklyn is very much in a growth spurt. There are certain times in history when things take off and that’s what’s happening right now.” The Biotechnology Initiative, as Cramer’s facility is collectively known, is expected to contribute 210 permanent jobs to Brooklyn, excluding employment relating to the ongoing construction of the facilities.
The Biotechnology Initiative has already worked with Patricia Rockwell of Hunter College to educate Hunter’s young biology students, says Cramer. The program has led to 107 biotechnology jobs. “The students at Medgar Evers,” says Cramer, “are also eligible for this program. They would get four credits to take the class.”
And yet, the new building at Medgar Evers also has its critics.
Among them is former congressman Major Owens, a founder of the college and now a professor in Medgar Evers Department of Public Administration. Owens says, “The whole original purpose of [Medgar Evers] city college was for working class families. Not to imitate Yale or Harvard. And what the present chancellor is doing is trying to imitate Yale or Harvard. He wants to out-build them with research institutions; that huge science center he’s put a lot of money into; you got a law school. Which is OK. But the basic mission of the college has been abandoned.”
Comparing the old system to the new he says, “Evening classes were two or three times larger than day classes because people were working. You had a lot of immigrants here who all got their start for free. Now they keep piling on the tuition.”
Still, Owens sees a bright side too, “It’s an impressive structure. It’s big and it sends a message that Medgar Evers is here to stay. I think this is the final step to certify to the community that we’re here to stay.”
Read more about Biotech Park and its sister project BioBAT:
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