PHOTO: Map in the UHCL Master Plan of the proposed North Mall District and the buildings expected to accompany it. — Map of the Master Plan's proposed North Mall District of UHCL and the buildings that are expected to accompany it. Photo courtesy of the UHCL Master Plan.

UHCL Master Plan indicates STEM II and student center next for new construction

By Samantha Hinds On Mar 3, 2020 1,093 0

The University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) is a growing campus that, not too long ago, consisted of only upper-classmen. When the university first opened in 1974, it was home to juniors and seniors, three schools and one building.

Almost 46 years later, the now four-year university is home to four colleges and 10 buildings dedicated to students, including two at UHCL’s Pearland campus, a recreation center and the first residence hall.

One of UHCL’s newest classroom buildings, the STEM Building, houses science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The current building includes 15 teaching labs for physics, chemistry, geology, industrial hygiene, environmental safety and mechanical engineering. The STEM Building also includes an astronomy observation deck, computer-aided drafting and 3-D printing.

Mark Denney, vice president of administration and finance, said that next on the Master Plan’s to-do list for UHCL could possibly be another STEM Building as well as a Student Center.

Denney said that UHCL’s growth in student enrollment is heaviest in the STEM majors and the current STEM I Building, constructed in 2018, is significantly smaller than what it was envisioned to be. Older labs and classrooms on the third floor of Bayou are still being used for biology courses.

“By building a new STEM Building, it would allow us to take the labs in Bayou completely off-line and move our students into new facilities where their learning outcomes would be significantly improved,” Denney said.

Stem Village states on its website that there is currently a gap between STEM jobs in high demand and potential applicants having the skills to fill them. The website states that, right now, there is a lack of interest among students and STEM programs, resulting in a STEM job crisis and that a large percentage of students are struggling to meet basic requirements within these programs and are losing interest in STEM-related fields.

Nelson Carter, lecturer of mathematics, said he believes that “without more students majoring in STEM areas and matriculating into STEM fields tomorrow, we may not have a future,” and points to climate change and the rising temperatures in Antarctica as an example.

“For humans to have a chance at preventing climate change effects to become catastrophic, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests we need to arrest warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius; unfortunately, this means that if our carbon emissions were zero today, we would still need to remove “100 to 1000 gigatonnes of CO2 this century (Cho, 2018),” Carter said. “Unfortunately, this means that every plan to save ourselves from climate change is dependent on Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technology that does not yet exist. To develop this technology, we will need more STEM researchers. Then, we will need more skilled workers to engineer and build the machines that will help us accomplish this. In addition, we will need substantial development in battery research to make them more effective and more environmentally friendly.”

The second building in question is a student center. A portion of the Student Services and Classroom Building, also known as SSCB, is designed to serve as UHCL’s student center. The area inside the SSCB referred to as the Student Lounge is meant to be a space for students to relax, study and engage with other members of UHCL.

“Our enrollment has gone up so that our student activities, clubs and programs really struggle to fit within the space in the SSCB,” Denney said. “It’s very difficult to have dedicated space for student activities and things like that. It’s too small. I certainly think that would be a real benefit to students if we did that, but we have to go through a student referendum process.”

While UHCL does have other places for students to unwind and relax, the areas are spread out all over campus. Larger student events are currently being held in the atriums of the Bayou Building, but there have been disruptions with noise due to the close proximity of classrooms. David Rachita, dean of students, supports the idea of a student center building specifically designated to student life and student achievement.

“The student union would be a center hub for student activities on campus,” Rachita said. “You might find the bookstore in there. You might find the cafeteria in there. You would find much bigger open lounge spaces where people can just hang out, talk, play and study. Right now, we’re so scattered on this campus as far as student activities are concerned. You never have a target audience in one place and that would hopefully meet that goal.”

Rachita believes that it is essential for UHCL to have a student center. In order for UHCL to be a designation university, students need to come in and see that there is a place for them to be a student.

“When prospective students are visiting campus, they’re looking for an accredited university; they’re looking for degree programs, but they’re walking in and they’re looking for the ‘wow’ factor,” Rachita said. “Those ‘wow’ factors are the rec center, probably the library, and the student union, where they see people interacting, and that’s what the student union would do.”