Elizabethtown College entered the 21 st century in a position of strength with record enrollment of more than 1,860 and firmly established programs across the curriculum.

With the recent completion of the James B. Hoover Center for Business, the College is now focused on strengthening the sciences with the construction of the Frank M. Masters Jr. Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering.

The Masters Center will add 33,000 square feet of new science classrooms, modern laboratories and research facilities and result the in the renovation of existing buildings- Musser and Esbenshade Halls. The first part of the project is the construction of the Lyet Wing for Biological Sciences, which was named for Dr. J. Paul Lyet III ’69 by his mother, emeritus trustee Dorothy Lyet.

The Biology Department has grown more than 65 percent over the past 15 years, and the Lyet Wing will allow the Department to be centralized with teaching laboratory space increasing 15 percent and student/faculty research space increasing 131 percent! Student research space will make up the “heart” of the new building.

With your support, the College can meet the $9 million goal needed to make the Lyet Wing for Biology open for student use in fall 2007.

The Biology Department has changed dramatically in recent decades. The faculty has grown from six to eight, and the number of majors has grown from an average of 70 to more than 180.

New majors were added in the 1990’s in Biotechnology and Environmental Science, affiliations with major universities were established, and the curriculum has changed to emphasize investigative, discovery based learning.

Biology courses now require students to ask questions; formulate hypotheses; gather, interpret, and present data; draw conclusions; write papers; and make oral reports on major findings. The concepts learned in those courses then strengthen the work students do in our laboratories. Combined with the close interaction with faculty mentors, the feedback between student research, and discovery based learning is the hallmark of an Elizabethtown biology student.

The types of investigative projects students engage in include:

• Amplifying portions of their DNA to compare it to the DNA of people from around the world and to prehistoric human tissue;
• Studying the plant pathogen fire blight and the effect it is having on local apple and pear trees;
• Testing for pollutants in local water sources;
• Learning about antibiotic resistance in microbial populations; and
• Examining the mechanisms through which a viral protein causes cancer.

College alumni routinely report on the strength of the Elizabethtown education, particularly their Biology curriculum.

Since 1995 nearly 120 students have presented research findings at scientific meetings and have had abstracts of that work published. Another 10 students have co-authored publications with faculty in scientific journals. This has been possible because the faculty are committed to emphasizing research and discovery-based learning with students That research occurs year round.

Each summer, more than 20 students compete for and receive summer research and internship positions around the country including ones at National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute; The Cleveland Clinic, and major university research centers around the country.

The faculty have been very successful in strengthening student research with external funding. Over the past six years, the Biology Department has received more than a million dollars in grant support from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institure, Nationa Park Service, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and the Whitaker Foundation.

Those grants have provided our students with:

• exciting avenues of study both in the classroom and for independent research under the direction of faculty mentors.
• hands-on research experience that have made them competitive for the best graduate and health professions programs in the country.

Biology space in the Masters Center will contain new laboratories for general biology, ecology, environmental science, microbiology, developmental biology, genetics, cell biology, molecular biology and anatomy and physiology. Each laboratory will have an adjacent faculty and student research lab. Shared equipment rooms and other specialized facilities will foster interdisciplinary cooperation between the students and faculty in the sciences.

It is the student faculty interactions that make our alumni note that their “academic preparation for graduate school was excellent,” and that “attending Elizabethtown College set them up for success.”

Elizabethtown College needs the support of alumni, friends, corporations, and foundations who believe in providing our students with an excellent comprehensive undergraduate education. Your support will help ensure that the new Science, Math and Engineering Center opens for student use by fall 2007.  

For more information regarding the Masters Center for Mathematics, Science and Engineering please contact:

Development Office, Elizabethtown College - One Alpha Drive, Elizabethtown, PA 17022 or call 800 877-9658

Check website for weekly changes and updates! www.etown.edu/