Donors and guests visit Chapman for official Keck Center opening

From left to right, President Emeritus Jim Doti, President Daniele Struppa, donor Julianne Argyros, Robert Day, president of the Keck Foundation and Andrew Lyon, the dean of the Schmid College, celebrate at the official Keck Center ribbon cutting ceremony Oct. 11. Photo by Bonnie Cash

Around 120 donors, professors, faculty members, parents and students gathered Oct. 11 at the official opening of Chapman’s newest building, the $130 million Keck Center for Science and Engineering.

Complete with a microchip software engineering lab and technology integrated circuit libraries, the Keck Center holds more than $1 billion worth of equipment and building costs.

Guests were given tours of the building and speakers held a forum discussing the Keck Foundation’s aspirations for contribution to scientific research.

Despite the official Ocober opening, the Keck Center has been open for classes since the fall semester began.

“Schmid College has been moving into the Keck Center since the beginning of June, and we’ve spent the entirety of the summer and the early part of fall semester getting this really complicated building up and running,” said Andrew Lyon, the dean of Schmid College of Science and Technology.

The 400 block of North Center Street, which runs from Walnut to Sycamore cross streets, was closed from noon until 7 p.m. because of the opening and curbside street parking was restricted with traffic cones.

Flyers were given to each house affected by the temporary closure with a parking permit for the Lastinger Parking Structure, according to Jack Raubolt, the vice president of Community Relations. Raubolt said that Chapman’s Community Relations department hasn’t received any complaints about the closure.

The opening event began at 4:30 p.m. with guided tours of the center led by the Schmid Student Leadership Council— a student group of selected ambassadors for Schmid College.

The tours featured the center’s new food science and computer labs, while members of the Student Leadership Council stood outside of classrooms and labs filled with students, giving quick summaries of the rooms to guests.

The tour also featured a five-layer glass painting with sequence LED lighting just past the entrance of the building titled “Life As We Know It.” Created by New York artist Peter Bynum, the experimental piece depicts “unknown species” interlaced with one another.

“I wanted to make something people from all disciplines of science could appreciate,” said Bynum, who attended the event.

After the tours, President Daniele Struppa gave a short speech where he praised the W.M. Keck Foundation for its “gift to Chapman.”

The Los Angeles based-foundation, which has opened centers at the California Institute of Technology, Claremont McKenna College and the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, donated $25 million to Chapman in September 2017 to name the Keck Center. It was the first building in Orange County named for the foundation.

“As Chapman rises through the ranks, we do not merely copy what others have done; we forge new paths,” Sruppa said at the event. “As we celebrate the opening of one of our most technologically advanced buildings (on campus), we can see a bright new future ahead of us.”

Kyndra Rotunda, a law professor involved in the Phi Beta Kappa applicaion process, told The Panther in September that the opening of the Keck Center and its advanced technologies played a role in the information that Phi Beta Kappa evaluated when considering Chapman’s application into its honor society.

Robert Day, chairman and chief executive officer of the Keck Foundation, also spoke at the event.

“I am proud that the Keck Center, named after my grandfather, has aided in the advancement of scientific technology,” Day said.

Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, discussed her work studying a black hole named Sagittarius A. She said her work is enhanced by using the Keck Foundation’s optical and infrared telescopes, which allow her to gain a clearer picture of the cosmos.

“The equipment is so much better than in Hashinger (Science Center),” said Fatema Haider, a junior health sciences major who was studying in the center during the opening.