Willamson County Science Building Layouts
Buildings and architecture are truly things of fascination. Architecture plays a role in this especially when it comes to laying out a specific place, like a university. When it comes to a university, buildings are the source of the campus look and fill the aesthetic of what the learning environment is. Here at Southwestern University, the addition of the Williamson County Science building was the addition to Southwestern University that provided a fresh look to the campus. The Williamson County Science Building was a building that took a community effort to raise money and eventually construct in 1916[1]. The building created a fresh look for Southwestern. In this research project, I explore the history of the Williamson County Science building, focusing on what having this layout and available spaces for science mean for students and the campus. Using primary sources from SU Special Collections secondary sources, this paper respond to the following questions. How does having a science building affect Southwestern? Why the layout is the way it is? And what was the building's impact at Southwestern?
There is a total of 3 blueprints of the first, second, and third floor of the Williamson County Building. Each floor plan is done on blue paper. A basic compass with the direction north and west is labeled on them. Each page was labeled with floor numbers and room use. These blueprints are just for layouts which means there is no dimensions, although there is a visual representation of size. Each floor seemed to have been designated for a scientific discipline. The first floor was for Physics. It had a general lecture room, the professor's office, a physics lab, and lecture room. The second floor was for Biology and Genetics. It had 2 biology [2] and a Genetics lab, 1 Biology lecture room that was likely used for genetics, a museum, and 2 offices. The third floor was designated for Chemistry. It had 4 labs[3] and 1 large lecture room. Compared to the lecture rooms, the labs tend to be larger, and they also outnumber the amount of lecture rooms. Another thing to note is there is a museum on the second floor amongst the biology class.[4]
Building a science building on campus allows for new horizons to be reached toward science, allowing the ability of science to be tested. This creates spaces on campus that allowed students to “position [themselves] in a cultural space…[to] serve both as active agents in the transformation of scientific identity”[5]here on campus. By building it also toward the center as well[6] the placement “evokes the place and transforms the space”[7]. That shows that the presence of the science building on campus shows a shift towards a future of science focused studies here at Southwestern. We see this as the science building became the place where SU science students had their own place where they could interact with other science students. Here is where science-based organizations would meet such as The Southwestern Science Society and The Physics Club[8]. By having this space for themselves, students could build their scientific knowledge and themselves amongst one another by building a small community where they could discuss what they enjoyed doing together with the focus being on science. The Williamson County Science Building is a model example of how “Buildings stabilize social life [and] give structure to social institution, durability to social networks, persistence to behavior patterns. They are forever objects of (re)interpretation, narration, and representation.”[9]
With the shift toward scientific study at Southwestern, we can look at the layout of the building quite differently. The Science Building has a lot of large spaced laboratories compared to the lecture rooms. This can be seen as a way to promote students and professors to find home in the laboratory and use it like a “ workshop as a space for their own experiments”[10] which many must have been conducted, particularly on genetics lab which would still be a newer science at the time. The labs were also a place for students to practice their practical skills and with “large-scale resources…could learn to replicate and develop contemporary research results.”[11].
Finally, the museum. On the second floor there is a museum located between the Biology lecture room and a teacher office. It is interesting to see it here. Other universities at the time did not have museums. Museums are known as spaces of public display, learning, and exhibition. [12] In institutions like universities, “museums acted as a complement to academic life.”[13] As they were “collections of contemporary modern instruments…accumulation of apparatus [and] a site of antiques and elderly curiosities.”[14]Thus, it being on the floor orientated toward Biology, its justified to assume that it was an area of display of not only student works, but of also display of specimens. It is likely that this was the space where also professors would make students walk around exhibits/presentations that may have occurred there as a way of interactive learning which is an intrusive way of learning as “seeing it in person is different than interacting with specimens.”[15]
Finally, the Science Building had a long-term Paideia impact. Thanks to the building, students engaged in activites that enhanced their creativity. Students became part of a “body of knowledge”[16] that connected across the campus to their other classes. The fear of being isolated in the science building is taken away because of this mentality that SU has toward making connection and interacting across disciplines.
After looking at the layout of the Williamson County Science Building via the blueprints, the idea of having a science building was a modern push that progressed SU toward sciences for the future. The number of labs allowed students to become scientists in their collective studies. The museum allowed practical learning and a more open approach to the learning they did in the classrooms. Thanks to the Paideia mindset that SU implemented, students were able to connect their studies across multiple disciplines that were at SU. The Williamson County Science Building set the stone for science studies at SU and provided students the opportunity and space to practice science.
[1] Jones, William B. To Survive and Excel: The story of Southwestern University (1840-200). Georgetown: Southwestern University, 2006. E-book.
[2] One lab is for advanced biology while the other is for general biology
[3] 2 organic Chemistry labs of different sizes on large chemistry lab in the middle of the floor and what looks to be a personal lab for the professor or a smaller lab for in class experiments.
[4] Southwestern University. "A Presentation of the Facilities of Southwestern University." Georgetown: Southwestern University, 1943. 25-27. Book.
[5] Galison, P. (2012). Buildings and the Subject of Science. In J. P. Peter Galison, The Architecture of Science (pp. 1-19). Cambridge: MIT Press.
[6] Jones, William B. To Survive and Excel: The story of Southwestern University (1840-200). Georgetown: Southwestern University, 2006. E-book. (Located where chapel was)
[7] Galison, P. (2012). Buildings and the Subject of Science. In J. P. Peter Galison, The Architecture of Science (pp. 1-19). Cambridge: MIT Press.
[8] “Science Society Holds Barbecue,” The Megaphone, June 1, 1948, 2-3, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth620874/m1/3/; “Science Soc. Meets, Honor Dr. Godbey,” The Megaphone, October 14, 1947, 1, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth620529/m1/1/. This is an estimate based on SSS appearance in school literature.
[9] Gieryn, T. F. (2002, FEB.). What Buildings Do. Theory and Society, Vol. 31(No.1), 35-74
[10] Gooday, G. (2008). Placing or replacing the laboratory in the History of Science. Isis, 789-795.
[11] Gooday, G. (2008). Placing or replacing the laboratory in the History of Science. Isis, 789-795.
[12] Nieto-Galan, A. (2016). Spectacular Science. In A. Nieto-Galan, Science in the Public Sphere (pp. 52-81). Taylor & Francis.
[13] Nieto-Galan, A. (2016). Spectacular Science. In A. Nieto-Galan, Science in the Public Sphere (pp. 52-81). Taylor & Francis.
[14] Gooday, G. (2008). Placing or replacing the laboratory in the History of Science. Isis, 789-795.
[15] Nieto-Galan, A. (2016). Spectacular Science. In A. Nieto-Galan, Science in the Public Sphere (pp. 52-81). Taylor & Francis.
[16] Christopher R. Henke, T. F. (2008). Site of scientific Practice: The enduring Importance of place. In o. A. Edward J. hackett, The handbook of Science and Technology Studies (pp. 353-377). Cambridge: The MIT Press.