OU facility ready to grow
Oklahoman, The (Oklahoma City, OK)
April 23, 2006
Author: Robert Medley; Staff Writer
NORMAN - Building a robot or growing a Zebrafish? You could do it under one roof now at the University of Oklahoma.
The Stephenson Research and Technology Center combines various studies in different fields inside the same building on OU's new and expanding south research campus.
The philosophy of sharing space with mathematicians working on computers or scientists working on fish, and pairing those who study in different fields dates to ancient Greece, said Lee Williams, vice president for research at OU.
In the Stephenson Center one professor may discuss a project with a professor of a completely different discipline, Williams said.
"The building itself is kind of a change in how buildings are organized on campus," Williams said. "It is a place where people of different disciplines come together, groups that have a great opportunity to collaborate."
A new painting displayed in the building serves as an important symbol, he said. The painting is "School of Athens," by Raphael that depicts classical Greece, where thinkers with different expertise discussed ideas freely in public forums.
Technology and scientific thought go together in a similar way, Williams said.
"The building is a symbol of the quality of the university," he said. "It provides a very good research space and social space. Great breakthroughs in science have come from conversations of people of different disciplines," Williams said.
There is a coffee shop in the Stephenson Center in a large open space in the front, he said.
"That is the original idea of a university community, a place where people share ideas," Williams said.
The new building is a good space for professors such as the distinguished Jizhong Zhou who came to OU from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Zhou is now an OU professor of microbiology and director of the Institute of Environmental Genomics in the Stephenson Center.
The Stephenson Center is growing, too.
The current building is 94,600-square-feet and cost about $27 million. It is north of State Highway 9 and east of Jenkins Avenue at 101 Constellation St. and was made possible with a gift of $6 million to OU from Tulsa oilman Charles Stephenson of Vintage Petroleum and his wife Peggy Stephenson.
The Stephenson Research and Technology Center at 101 Constellation Street cost $27 million. It opened in 2004 and has 94,600 square feet. It houses fields as diverse as the Institute for Environmental Genomics and the Robotics, Evolution, Adaptation and Learning Laboratory.
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