Dream Fulfilled

Exploration and discovery have a new home in the DeWitt Family Science Center

BY ANITA CIRULIS

For decades, a disconnect existed between the strength of Northwestern’s science programs, faculty and students, and the quality of its science facilities.

No longer.

Dedicated in September and opened for use in January, the Jack & Mary DeWitt Family Science Center is an investment in the lives and careers of future healthcare professionals, science teachers and researchers. It’s a vote of confidence for the Christian education provided by Northwestern—one founded on the belief that truth is revealed through both God’s word and God’s world.

Planning for the building began in 2013; the college publicly launched its $30 million Discover Campaign in October 2016. Included in that goal were $24.5 million for a new health and natural sciences building and $5.5 million for student research fellowships, science scholarships, and a building endowment.

The 61,000-square-foot science center is named for Jack and Mary DeWitt, whose $6 million gift, the largest in Northwestern’s history, enabled the college to break ground in April of 2017. Thankfulness for their generosity is especially felt by science faculty like Dr. David Arnett, professor of chemistry.

“Starting with the groundbreaking, I had this real sense of gratitude that people believed in what we were doing enough that they supported this kind of effort,” he says. “That’s not lost on me—the encouragement of, ‘We think what you’re doing is great. Let’s be greater. Let’s do more and be even better.’”

Arnett says the additional space and dedicated labs for research have increased his ability to be innovative in his teaching. And thanks to the Discover Campaign, Northwestern had the funds to purchase high-tech equipment like a $182,000 mass spectrometer and a $273,000 confocal microscope.

The biology department, likewise, is experiencing the impact of more—and larger—teaching labs, new research labs, and additional equipment, like an Illumina MiSeq DNA sequencer. Dr. Sara Sybesma Tolsma ’84, professor of biology, previously had as many as 15 students in her Cell Biology class trying to share a single 4-foot bio-safety cabinet. Now that same class is in a lab with one 4-foot and two 6-foot cabinets.

“More and more students are asking for research opportunities, and if you don’t have space, you can’t say yes to them,” she says.

Tolsma led Northwestern’s application to SEA-PHAGES, a national program run by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that’s designed to interest undergraduates in scientific research. NWC is one of just two colleges and universities in Iowa participating in SEA-PHAGES, and Northwestern is unique in how it is implementing the program: Research is embedded into two sequential biology courses that students take as early as their sophomore year.

Tolsma, like many of her colleagues, is also conducting research of her own. She spent the spring semester on sabbatical, continuing to identify plant extracts that inhibit or slow the growth of cancer cells. Without the dedicated research space provided by the DeWitt Family Science Center, spending that sabbatical on campus would have been difficult.

Nursing is another department impacted by Northwestern’s newest academic building. Before, clinical labs took place in the former Orange City Hospital, located north of downtown, which required scheduling classes so students had time to travel there and back.

In the DeWitt Family Science Center, nursing occupies the lower level of the building. There are four mock hospital/doctor’s office exam rooms, as well as a classroom with stations where students can practice their nursing skills. Three simulation rooms—obstetrics, pediatrics and medical/surgery—are connected to faculty observation rooms via two-way mirrors. There’s also a centrally located control room that enables a single instructor to run multiple simulations at the same time.

“It’s been a joy to be integrated with the rest of campus,” says Dr. Karie Stamer, assistant professor of nursing. “Biology and chemistry play a huge role in the care our nursing students provide. It’s important for students to see our departments working together and how all of what they’re learning is related.”

That integration—of disciplines with one another and of the study of science with faith in God—is among the reasons Northwestern science graduates are known as standout healers and caregivers, researchers and teachers. Not only are they smart, they also reflect the light of Christ wherever their careers and lives take them.