“Amarillo College invites the entire community to take part in a midday dedication of its recently completed STEM Research Center during a celebratory Open House on Thursday, Sept. 27.
The event will feature exploratory tours of the nearly 12,000-square-foot laboratory and greenhouse, and the festivities will conclude with a special guest lecture.
The public presentation begins at 10:30 a.m. at the STEM Research Center on S. Van Buren Street. Find it just north of W. 24th Avenue on the Washington Street Campus.
AC President Russell Lowery-Hart will give welcoming remarks at 10:45 a.m. and visitors may then tour the new Center, where AC experts will be standing by until 1 p.m. to expound on its many scholarly assets.
As a capstone to activities of the day, Richard Jack, operations manager at Bayer Trait Development Greenhouse of Lubbock, will be featured in a free installment of AC’s STEM Research Center Lecture Series.
Jack will present his lecture at 1 p.m. in Ordway Hall, at the corner of Washington Street and W. 22nd Avenue, where he will explain technology relationships between research and wholesale greenhouse production.
AC’s fully automated STEM Research Center – and the Lecture Series – are the result of a $4.9 million grant the College received in 2016 from the U.S. Department of Education.
The Hispanic-Serving Institution-STEM Grant empowered AC to construct the Research Center, which was completed in August, and to greatly expand its academic offerings. The College rolled out its new Horticulture Program this fall, and in various stages of development are programs in Biotechnology, Environmental Science, and Sustainable Resources.
The grant also provided a generous allowance for cutting-edge equipment. STEM students at AC can now conduct research utilizing everything from a fluorescence microscope for live cell imaging, to a gas chromatograph for analysis of soil and plant chemicals.
For more information about STEM-related program offerings at Amarillo College, please call (806) 371-5000.”
-Amarillo College
