综合科学中心：开放思想和进步
ISC Phase 1 is past—that is to say, it’s completed and up and running. 在撰写本文时，ISC 2已接近完成一半。 ISC 3 is still on the drawing boards, but will be very much a part of the future of research at the College, as it will contain 活动 devoted to “things that we don’t even have names for yet,” in the words of Dennis Manos, vice provost for research.
ISC 1在2008年夏天开始运行，容纳了化学系和生物系的所有元素。 化学从邻近的罗杰斯大厅转移过来，该大厅正在被拆除并改造成ISC 2。 一旦ISC 2的改造过程完成，ISC 1和ISC 2将连接起来。 ISC 1 also is the first building on the Williamsburg campus devoted primarily to scientific 活动. There are research labs and teaching labs in the building, along with meeting areas and faculty offices—but no classrooms. The philosophy is to foster collaborative creativity among scientists and researchers—including William and Mary students.
“I tend to see the ISC as a progression in the trend of how we do business in the sciences at William and Mary,” Manos said. “That trend is away from the isolated, individual investigator working on one or two problems in a narrowly defined discipline, towards engagement in solving larger scale problems through teamwork.”
Phase 1 of the Integrated Science Center is, at a basic—but very important—level, a new, up-to-date facility to serve the research and teaching needs of two important departments. 这两个部门一直在使用陈旧的设备凑合着用。 把化学和生物放在同一栋楼里的机会是偶然的。
“The boundaries between chemistry and biology long ago began to dissolve,” Manos said. “The techniques, the instrumentation, and the various methods the individual practitioners use are often the same. For instance, the difference between fluorescent resonant excitation transfer in chemistry and various forms of fluorescent microscopic imaging in biology may someday disappear altogether.”
Manos说，这些科学已经整合了多年，而ISC的概念将进一步推动威廉玛丽学院的这一进程。 化学与生物学共享ISC 1的一部分，而心理学将搬到ISC 2的一楼，二楼有更多的生物学家。 预期的结果将是一种交叉受精，或者至少是消除传统的部门界限。
“By melding the interests and capabilities of various types of scientists, and having them collide in hallways, share study spaces, and interact over common equipment, new things will emerge. 最好的遗传进化系统是那些具有最频繁的交叉受精相互作用和最多样化的个体贡献者的系统。 谁知道在神经科学、生物化学或意识的分子相关领域会出现什么样的智力嵌合体呢？
重要的事情先做
在整合科学之前，它们需要适当的工作条件，化学系主任加里·赖斯（Gary Rice）指出了他的部门在工作环境方面的一些实际改进。
“Chemistry requires a lot of air handling,” Rice said. “The air handling systems in Rogers were shot. 我们常开的一个玩笑是，你可以通过大厅里的气味来判断那个星期哪个有机佳博体育在运行。 That is not an issue in this building.”
任何空气交换系统的业务端都在佳博体育通风柜里：通风的，封闭的工作空间在扇门后面。 任何使用化学品的佳博体育的工作能力，都更准确地用通风柜的数量来描述，而不是用空间的平方英尺来描述。 The two chemistry floors of ISC 1 has plenty of hoods, placed strategically among teaching and research labs—double the number the department had in Rogers Hall.
“We had three teaching labs in Rogers Hall. Each lab had four hoods along one wall,” Rice said. “Walk into one of these labs in the ISC you’ll see the hoods encircle the entire lab. Now, we have four teaching labs with 12 hoods in each of them.”
化学教学佳博体育每对学生都有一顶帽子。 系里的研究佳博体育都有适合在里面进行研究的兜帽。
“We designed the building to accommodate a wide variety of research interests. That has a lot to do with the hoods,” Rice said. “Some faculty do research that requires a lot of ventilation for the type of work they do; 其他人则不然。 有些研究佳博体育只有两个兜帽。 有些人有四个。 有些人有六个。 The six-hood labs are for those that tend to work with a lot of organic chemicals that require constant ventilation.” 建筑的空气处理能力也被设计为适应额外的通风柜要求，因为我们的教师需要改变。
老罗杰斯除了化学系外，还主持过哲学系和宗教系。 多年来，化学家们根据自己的目的调整了空间，创建了佳博体育、办公室、教室和其他必要的空间。 ISC为佳博体育设计提供了一张白纸。
“As research became a bigger mission of the College, we did every conceivable renovation possible in Rogers to create research space for our faculty. Lab space varied from a few hundred square feet up to 500-600 square feet, tops,” Rice explained. “Now everybody has essentially a 900-plus square-foot research space. 在旧的佳博体育里，你有狭窄的通道。 学生们很容易撞到一起。 The labs today are far more spacious, with open aisles.”
在米林顿不酷
当ISC 1拥有所有的化学时，8名来自生物系的研究人员从邻近的米林顿大厅搬来。 （更多的生物学家将在ISC 2完成后迁入。） Paul Heideman, chair of the biology department, says temperature stability is important to many of the researchers in his department, but temperature stability is not one of Millington’s virtues.
“Millington really wasn’t designed to house the much more expensive, much more high-end equipment that we use now,” Heideman said. “Some of it is noisy and hot, and the cooling system in Millington often didn’t keep things cool.”
He explained that many biologists store samples in special cooling units, usually called “minus-80” freezers, as they keep their contents at 80 degrees below zero Centigrade. 在停电的情况下，米林顿有备用电源为零下80度的冰柜供电，但除此之外就没什么了。 When room temperatures rise above 83 degrees Fahrenheit, the compressors on minus-80s start to overload, then fail, and as Heideman says, “You could lose years of work and $100,000 in a night.”
Freezers weren’t the only pieces of equipment vulnerable to temperature; 海德曼说，许多仪器和标本在停电期间濒临灭绝。 断电事件会导致学院关闭，生物学家们不得不加班。
“Every hurricane, every ice storm, everything that knocked out power, people would be down here worried about the heat,” he said. “After Hurricane Isabel, I practically lived in Millington for several nights.”
The comprehensive, computerized air-exchange system built into ISC 1 will eliminate the chemists’ concern about ventilation. 化学和生物都将受益于由一对600千瓦发电机锚定的备用系统所提供的安心。 The system is designed to keep the building’s HVAC systems running for at least four days.
所有的化学系都搬进了ISC 1，这使得他们的空间分配问题相对简单，而生物系面临的问题是谁住在ISC 1的三楼，谁住在ISC 2的二楼。 最重要的是，谁能留在米林顿？
该部门听取了一位顾问的建议，并确定了八名研究人员，他们的佳博体育最容易受到米林顿停电和洪水的影响。 Heideman said the ISC 1 group centered on the equipment-intensive labs of molecular biologists, but also included faculty such as Eric Engstrom, who works with 拟南芥, a genus of plant that is valuable as a model in agricultural studies. To cultivate his samples of 拟南芥 successfully in Millington, Engstrom had to resort to a Rube Goldberg strategy that included portable air conditioners and foil on the lab windows.
The second wave of 10 biologists will move into the second floor of ISC 2—the gutted and refurbished Rogers Hall. （包括海德曼主席在内的五位生物学家将暂时留在米林顿。） ISC 2的一楼将容纳大部分心理学系的学生。 大厦预定于2009年春夏入住。
更多心理空间
像化学和生物学一样，心理学将受益于一系列大大改进的设施。 Department Chair Constance Pilkington is one of 19 faculty—and all of their students—who do research on human psychology out of one shared and two individual facilities in the psychology wing of Millington.
“The shared space is booked constantly,” Pilkington said. “We got some relief when we established some individual laboratories in the old Bell Hospital. But basically, that’s all we have. The rest of the data are collected in classrooms.”
A department conference room in Millington is dominated by an enlargement of the floor plan of ISC 2’s first floor. Pilkington points to the Post-It® notes indicating space assignments for members of the psychology faculty.
“All faculty will have their own dedicated research space when we move. Now, for many of us they are fairly small rooms that aren’t particularly flexible in what you can do with them,” she said. “But everybody having dedicated research space will be a vast improvement. At minimum, there will be good space for research team meetings and certain kinds of data collection.”
她说心理学很久以前就已经超出了米林顿的空间。 该系于1968年搬入大楼，当时有8名教职员工； 现在有21个。 有些教员在贝尔大楼设有佳博体育，但大多数教员在米林顿进行研究。
“Our space in Millington was designed in 1967. State-of-the-art back then was two-way mirrors,” she said. “We will have some of those in our new space, but we really don’t use those much anymore, because people are very suspicious of them. Instead, we will more likely use remote-controlled hidden cameras, which will be part of the infrastructure in the ISC 2.”
Pilkington’s own research deals with romantic relationships, and much of it will be conducted in the new shared Dyadic Interaction Laboratory, devoted to the interaction of couples, or dyads.
“I might ask a couple to talk about something personal in one room,” she explained. “And then I might separate them to get their takes on what happened. Then I’d compare their perceptions with what actually happened, as recorded—with their permission—by the cameras.”
配备多台计算机的大型佳博体育空间也将是该计划的一部分。 “A lot of us show people certain kinds of stimuli on the computer and we need to show it to them for a specified period of time,” she said. “So we can bring groups of participants in at the same time and have them do that all at once, rather than running individual sessions for as many as 100 people. It will make us much more efficient collecting that kind of data.”
科学融合
综合科学中心的第一阶段旨在最大限度地提高学生和教师之间的联系。 Each floor has at least one lobby, and the long corridors are punctuated by “colloquium” areas. 科学史上点缀着这样的故事：一位研究人员为一把隐喻性的锁感到困惑，而他在大厅另一头的同事发现了一把同样具有隐喻性的钥匙，并在想这把钥匙适合什么。 Manos认为，开放区域自然会鼓励互动，将综合科学概念扩展到个人规模。
“This is how science is done,” Manos said. “It’s done over coffee and in informal gab sessions.”
Presence of food and drink—even a nalgene bottle of H2O—is discouraged in lab spaces, if not outright prohibited. 大厅和讨论会区的长椅、桌椅都是喝水、吃零食或休息的好地方。
“You’ll see students out at the tables and in the lobbies, which we didn’t have in Rogers. They’re working on problem sets or preparing for exams,” Rice said. “I can see faculty sitting out there with them, talking about research and things of that nature.”
讨论会区域配备了白板，这样喝咖啡时产生的想法就可以被记录下来。 许多区域也连接了数据端口。 Even though the ISC, like the rest of the William and Mary campus, has wireless internet access, sometimes it isn’t enough.
“We want people to be able to hook up to a land line when they have to do really high-volume things if they want to get into the NIH or National Cancer Institute databases to analyze complex things,” Heideman said. “That’s hard to do with wireless because it’s often such big files and there’s so much data.”