WSU Tri-Cities begins $30 million building with special science and engineering labs 

While Adriana McKinney won’t be there to see it finished, the mechanical engineering student is excited about WSU Tri-Cities’ newest building.

She spent a year and a half as the student representative on the design committee.

“It’s been a real journey and experience to see this building evolve and become a real great opportunity,” she said.

Regents, student leaders and university leaders gathered last week at what will be a new $30 million academic building that will expand the opportunities for science, technology and other classes along with adding places for students and faculty to meet.

School leaders broke ground on the state-funded building in north Richland that is expected to be finished in the summer of 2021.

The new building will add much needed space for science programs at the university, said Kate McAteer, the campus’ vice chancellor for academic affairs and biology professor.

Students will use its eight new labs to learn about physics, biology, anatomy and engineering.

Faculty members have spent a lot of time training in recent years on how to teach students through active learning.

This method encourages student to explore a subject rather than just being lectured to.

“Those of us that do active learning are really excited to be in a room that has the furniture and has the technology,” McAteer said. “In an active learning room, where there are four students at a table and there’s a monitor here and they can hook up their laptops and they can get that protein in 3-D and move it.”

Active learning classrooms

Beyond the labs and classrooms, the new building offers other spaces where students can study together, work with faculty or visiting faculty can use for office spaces.

“When I think of the building, my word is ‘connection,’” McAteer said. “It’s really designed so there are spaces for group projects. Spaces for quiet little nooks if you want to study by yourself. There are spaces to meet with faculty. A lot of the research shows that students don’t want to go to a faculty office.”

In total, the building’s 40,000-square-foot design has nine collaborative meeting spaces.

Students wanted a great place to study with a lot of natural light that is provided in a way where they aren’t on display in the classrooms.

They also wanted to make sure there was enough space in the classrooms so students don’t need to be on a waiting list for courses.

The building’s active learning classroom offers a balance where 95 students can take a class, but they sit at tables so the instructor can also work with individual groups.

“The faculty member is walking around and interacting with the students. The students are interacting more with each other,” she said. “Every thought that went into designing these spaces was how can we make sure that students feel like they belong in this space.”

The building also will include a community kitchenette where students can prepare food.

Several years of planning

The campus initially began working on the project in 2015. Across three state budgets, the project received $30 million in funding.

The planning came as the school saw jumps in enrollment. Student enrollment has settled at 18,000 — about 2,000 more students than when planning began.

Those large gains at the time pushed the campus to lease a building from the Port of Benton’s research district to accommodate student and faculty needs.

But for Regent Lura Powell, the history of the new academic building reaches back 20 years when she first started as the head of Pacific Northwest National Lab in Richland.

“One of the early things I did was come across the street and meet with (Chancellor) Larry James,” she told the crowd last week. “When we sat down to talk, this building was one of the things on his wish list.

“This building will not only have a wonderful impact on the future students of WSU, but it’s also important to the university and it’s very important to the future of our community.”