The funding for a new Molecular and Life Sciences (MLS) building, intended to replace Hall-Atwater Laboratory, was taken a hefty step further by a $2.5 million-pledge from Board of Trustee member Joshua Boger ’73, P’06, P’09 and wife Amy Boger P’06, P’09.
The Bogers’ pledge, along with other substantial donations such as $1 million provided by Board of Trustees member George Ring P’98, P’02, will underwrite the initial planning and schematic design of the building project.
University faculty and staff members are currently collaborating with Payette Associates, Inc. of Cambridge, MA to study the programming and feasibility of the building. The schematic design will be completed within the next year, and construction could begin in 2009 if fundraising proves sufficient. The project will cost at least $125 million total.
In addition to his position as founder, president, and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Cambridge, Joshua Boger also leads the University’s Science Advisory Council. Established in 2005, the council serves to strengthen university sciences, raising the sciences’ visibility on and off campus. Over the past two years, it has been a sounding board for administrators as they have crafted the building project’s strategic plans.
“But the dirty, dark secret is that we spend most of our time talking to students outside the science and math majors to try to pull them in, and suggesting changes in courses to involve more science-related topics,” Boger said.
Interdisciplinary teaching and research are major components of the University’s nationally renowned science program. Undergraduates often collaborate with faculty and graduate students to engage in funded research, and more than a third of science majors perform independent research projects in faculty members’ labs. According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the University also ranks as one of the top ten baccalaureate colleges whose students go on to obtain Ph.D. degrees in the sciences.
According to Boger, the addition of a new molecular and life sciences center would increase the prominence of the University’s program.
“Sciences at Wesleyan will continue to have a leadership position,” he said. “We can already see its present state of leadership with the disproportionate number of students going on to work at a graduate level and the support we’ve gotten from the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and NSF. And with a modern science facility, the biggest impact will be on the rest of the campus, as connections will be made with non-science majors.”
Boger said that he feels strongly about interweaving a liberal arts education with an engagement in the sciences to maximize students’ post-graduate success.
“The characteristic of a Wesleyan student 50 years ago, and still today, is a level of engagement with the world,” he said. “I think there’s a risk that students will go through their Wesleyan years and be relatively disengaged with the sciences, which does not put them in leadership positions. We want science and math programs to be strong, enticing, and fun, putting students in better positions to impact whatever field they choose.”
Boger’s credentials also include Director and Vice Chairman of BIO, the biopharmaceutical industry Trade Association, a Founding Director of the New England Healthcare Institute, and a Director of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute. He earned his B.A. in chemistry and philosophy from Wesleyan and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from Harvard University.
Amy Boger is a physician and Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as a professional ceramic artist.