Gustavus kicks off the new school year off with the announcement of a 25 million dollar donation, the largest gift in the history of the College.

The money will be used as the foundation of an estimated 65 million dollar expansion and renovation of the Alfred Nobel Hall of Science.

“The donor has asked to be anonymous, but they are a local Twin Cities family with five Gusties, past supporters of the College, and have a real commitment to science and innovation,” Vice President for Institutional Advancement Tom Young said.

The plans for Nobel have been in the works since 2012 and are currently being reevaluated.

The project consists of expansions to the North, South, and West ends of the building, as well as a complete renovation of the existing structure which includes the movement of the Wallenberg Auditorium to the South end, where it will be used as a venue space.

The South end will also incorporate a connection to the Schaefer Fine Arts building by the Anderson Theater and the addition of a black box theater.

Chemistry professor and so-called ‘Shepard’ of the project Scott Bur explains the need for the all-encompassing renovation of Nobel.

“The way we teach and learn science has changed dramatically since I was in college. Content was delivered by the professor and we absorbed it and regurgitated it for tests, that’s the way we learned. That’s not the way we do it anymore because content is cheap and easily available. I think you need me to tell you how to work with that information. So the way we teach has gone more to an active style of learning and teaching,” Bur said.

“To see the college increase the size of gifts is really incredibly important and a wonderful testament to what our outside community sees as the value of the college.”

—Tom Young

These teaching methods include case studies, group problem sets, and research which require advanced labs and lots of work space.

“Wallenberg Auditorium is not designed for that and even the classrooms we have that are supposedly flexible are not actually very flexible space,” Bur said.

Bur is  excited to see the in depth learning this will allow for science students while they’re at Gustavus and the opportunities that it will open up for them after they graduate.

“For the students it’s going to mean better teaching practices, better learning opportunities, and the labs are going to be revitalized in a way that we can start to incorporate real research projects into the curricular labs so that more students get hands on real research experience. Once we have the new space, the things that we’re going to be able to do will be phenomenal,” Bur said.

However, science majors will not be the only ones on campus to benefit from the renovation. The majority of students will take at least one class in Nobel during their time at Gustavus due to the general science requirement.

Theater and dance students will also have a bigger and better black box theater to use for shows.

The whole Gustavus community will be able to enjoy the events of the new theater, as well as upgraded venue spaces like Wallenberg and more study and gathering places within Nobel.

“We’re going to open up the building a little bit so that it has a little more open feel like Beck Hall, which I think will draw students in to spend time in the building beyond just being in classes and labs,” President Bergman said.

She is also excited to see what the connection between Nobel and Schaefer will bring in terms of collaboration.

“This renovation will bridge to performing arts, so that’s kind of fun to think about how the sciences and the arts will be connected and what can we do with that. Those connections are fairly common,” Bergman said.

Once we have the new space, the things that we’re going to be able to do will be phenomenal.”

—Scott Bur

Bergman and Young also anticipate that the gift means good things for the College as a whole, explaining their excitement in terms of increasing monetary support for the College.

“It’s a transforming gift for the whole College. That will mean that there will be another donor out there who will potentially match that or more. In some ways I see it as a way to really build momentum for fundraising for the College in general. The phrase I’ve been using is that it raises all boats,” Bergman said.

“It’s a transforming gift for the whole college. In some ways I see it as a way to really build momentum for fundraising for the college in general.”

—President Bergman

The largest commitment for the last Campaign Gustavus was just under four million dollars, and the first donation for this year’s campaign was sixteen million dollars.

“To see the college increase the size of gifts is really incredibly important and a wonderful testament to what our outside community sees as the value of the college,” Young said. “I think it’s a wonderful legacy to have nearly 27,000 alumni and families cheering us on and supporting us every day we’re here.”

The donation was not the first designated for the renovation and there is still fundraising to do and financing to be figured out before the project can begin, but President Bergman approximates Spring 2017 as the breaking of ground of the expansion and renovation that will take approximately two years to complete.