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(Kevin Carman) Over the past few years,
LSU and all of higher education in Louisiana has endured
one of the most challenging periods in its history.
But the completion of this building provides
a beacon of hope and optimism for our mission
as Louisiana's flagship university, and particularly,
our obligation to the citizens of Louisiana and the nation
to be a source of discovery and innovation.
It provides tangible and symbolic evidence to
our faculty and students that LSU and the state of Louisiana
are committed to maintaining its status as a major research
university even during these difficult economic times.
LSU has already made substantial investments
in attracting outstanding faculty, and this building
will help those scholars and their students
realize their full potential.
(William Jenkins) As we developed the flagship agenda
some years ago, we understood that we had to put the right
and best tools in the hands of our faculty, our students
and our staff if LSU was going to be competitive.
This facility helps accomplish that goal
by adding much needed laboratory space.
With a state-of-the-art facility, LSU will be able
to recruit great faculty and students to LSU,
which are other goals of the flagship agenda.
Just last year, LSU won more than 142-million dollars
in new grants and contracts with 23% coming to
the College of Science. Research grants plus patents and
technology transfer will allow LSU to increase its
1.2 billion dollar economic impact for the state.
This facility also helps LSU service
the workforce needs of our state. Last year,
Chemistry graduated almost 100 graduates, many of whom
took jobs in our state. And we're also fulfilling
the nation's workforce demands for scientists and engineers.
This is more than just LSU's competitiveness,
this is all about America's global competitiveness,
and as you can see, this is much more than just a building.
(Governor Bobby Jindal) If we want our kids to be prepared
for jobs in the 21st century workforce, we must,
we must continue to support the flagship agenda
right here at LSU. That's starts with making LSU a magnet
to attract the best and brightest students, teachers
and researchers from all over the world. That's why
today's investment and today's announcement is so important.
We invested 34-million dollars as you've heard,
for the construction of this new building.
This 85,000 square-foot facility will expand
the university's research capacity in synthetic chemistry
and provide critical facilities for research
and materials science and engineering.
Now I could certainly go through all the details
about the dimensions of the new building, but the reality is
this new building is about more than just bricks and mortar.
This new facility will provide a world-class learning and
teaching environment that will draw students, faculty,
and researchers from Louisiana and around the world.
Indeed, research conducted in this new facility will have
real world applications in our state,
will be applied to manufacturing techniques,
healthcare and energy production.
This new facility will play a critical role in helping
our chemical and our engineering students get
the world class skills they need to find great jobs.
And that in turn will make Louisiana even more attractive
to companies looking to invest, to expand and create jobs
right here in our state. Now, we're going to talk a lot today
about the labs, and the beautiful facilities.
The reality is, what the most important thing we're
celebrating today is not the building. It's the faculty,
the staff and the students that make this department,
make this university such a great university. Let's give a
round of applause to the faculty, staff and students
who will put this facility to great use. (Applause)
(Richard Koubek) As an artist expresses creativity
with a brush and canvas, our faculty need laboratories,
clean rooms and synchrotrons to create
revolutionary scientific advances. The newly constructed
chemistry materials building provides us that palette
from which our faculty can embark on joint ventures
to visualize and realize the bold dreams of those daring
to push the boundaries of discovery.
Today, we stand in front of doors, poised to open
new opportunities, new partnerships and new dreams
for our faculty and students, thanks to the vision
of our state leaders, my colleagues here at LSU,
particularly Dean Kevin Carman. The newly constructed
chemistry materials building provides our science and
engineering faculty a creative space to explore and discover
so that one day we may all benefit from their
revolutionary theories, ideas, thoughts, and dreams.
(Luigi Marzilli) When Choppin Hall was being designed,
there were no computers thought of at that time.
Now, this new building has been constructed
with computers in mind, and with modern instrumentation
that's been made available by the presence of computers
interfacing with instrumentation, so we have
much more powerful instrumentation,
very expensive instrumentation, that is being shared
with engineering, across the university.
So, this is leading to an inter-disciplinary floor
devoted to materials research.
(Carlos Chavez) Lay people, they always tend to ask,
"what exactly is materials science
and why is this important? Why do we have an
entire building devoted to it?"
Well, this isn't just some esoteric term.
These are the substances that shape infrastructure.
So, from the concrete that this building was constructed to
the next drug that cures cancer,
as young scientists, our main goal is to make
materials stronger, cleaner, more efficient.
And what better way to inundate that idea
than to work in a building that does just that.
So, with that, I would like to thank and congratulate
everyone who was involved in the planning and construction
of this new chemistry materials building,
making our experience all the more fruitful.
Thank you very much. (Applause)