The Future of Science Begins Here
OU's new Life Sciences Laboratory Building for undergraduates will power tomorrow's workforce.
The American Medical Association and a long list of other health advocates have been sounding the alarm for years—there are simply not enough doctors and nurses on the front lines of our healthcare system, and the crisis is projected to get even worse.
As Oklahoma’s leading provider of healthcare workforce development, OU is tackling the issue head-on through a variety of initiatives, including increasing the class size of incoming medical students by 40 percent over five years and doubling enrollment numbers for nursing students.
Roughly 20% of students in OU’s booming undergraduate population plan healthcare as their field of choice, and each will be required to take undergraduate biology and chemistry courses. This increased demand, combined with aging campus facilities, exacerbates a chronic shortage of laboratory space on the Norman campus and is creating a true sense of urgency.
“Right now, we’re at complete capacity, and it’s only going to get worse,” says Tarren Shaw, a lecturer in the OU Department of Biology. Shaw is responsible for staffing and overseeing the department’s undergraduate labs on OU’s Norman campus.
“We would need to offer labs on Friday nights and Saturdays to have enough capacity for all the students. And even then, I don’t think that would do it, honestly,” he says.
In response, OU has unveiled plans for the $100 million, multi-story Life Sciences Laboratories Building. The 2027 completion date can’t come soon enough, with undergraduate lab enrollment projected to reach 4,700 students in fall 2025—a 41% increase in enrollment since 2019.
The 105,000-square-foot structure will stand on the former location of Sutton Hall, northwest of Bizzell Memorial Library. The building will house 25 modern undergraduate laboratory classrooms, as well as a 250-seat lecture hall, says Michael Markham, who was recently named dean of OU’s Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.
“This building will be the pipeline that students pass through before starting their medical education,” he says.
Some 80,000 square feet of the building will be dedicated to undergraduate education through a transformative, $80 million allocation from the Oklahoma State Legislature in 2024. The remaining 20,000 square feet of space will be occupied by state-of-the-art biomedical research labs for OU faculty members, supported by an anonymous $20 million private gift to the OU Foundation.
“It will be incredible and transformative for OU undergraduate education,” Markham says of the new life sciences facility. He also believes the building will make a tremendous difference in attracting the highest quality prospective students.
Aside from modern laboratories in Gallogly Hall—constructed in 2019 and featuring 10 classroom teaching labs in OU’s engineering quad—the vast majority of the university’s laboratories were constructed before 1980. The oldest labs are in OU’s Chemistry Annex, built in 1952 and still in daily use.
“When we have this new state-of-the-art building, it’s going to be a powerful recruiting tool,” Markham says, “If we bring prospective students to campus and show them a laboratory classroom that’s in worse condition than their high school, that’s not persuasive at all.”
By the time the building opens, enrollment in life science courses is expected to grow by another 14% to more than 5,300 students, he says.
Markham knows that OU faculty are already providing a consistently high-quality undergraduate education and instruction in the sciences. But teaching students in 17 different undergraduate lab spaces spread across seven different Norman campus buildings is not ideal.
“We’re trying to teach cutting-edge laboratory classes in facilities that are 50 to 70 years old, and they’re scattered all over campus,” he says. “We’ve been able to make it work, but it creates severe inconveniences and obstacles for students.”
Biology lab teaching assistant Tyler Reich, an ecology and evolutionary biology graduate student from Washington, Okla., says it’s difficult to manage the day-to-day logistics of preparing and distributing laboratory supplies and equipment each week.
“In the fall, we use a lab space in the Chemistry Building Annex, but we don’t even have a prep room in that building, so we have to prepare all the materials in Gallogly Hall on the other side of campus and then transport it,” he says. “Just the transport time between the two buildings takes 20 minutes. We either have to use a golf cart or lug it all across campus with multiple people.”
“The labs have served their purpose well,” adds John Peters, chair of OU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “I was an undergraduate here, graduating in 1989, and those are the same laboratories I used. But now they’re extremely dated and far less functional.
“There are increasing numbers of issues in those spaces, and it gets harder and harder to overcome that kind of first impression,” he says, explaining that laboratories are among the first facilities OU freshman science and engineering students put to use.
Modern, functional and safe labs in the new building will go a long way toward boosting students’ confidence in their OU science education, Markham says.
He points out that spaces freed up by centralizing undergraduates in the new life sciences building will not go to waste. Current undergraduate labs can be converted into modern research labs for OU faculty and office space for graduate students.
“We’re already constrained for faculty laboratory space, which constricts the research capacity in OU’s School of Biological Sciences,” he says. “If OU aspires to become an AAU-level university, developing research productivity and grant funding is the driving factor in pursuing that goal.”
Markham credits the efforts of OU President Joseph Harroz, Jr., a team of university administrators and the OU Foundation for partnering with state leaders, charitable foundations and individuals to fund the life sciences facility project. The new building plays an important role in OU’s strategic plan refresh, Lead on, University: The Next Phase, which includes a major focus on health workforce development and medical faculty research.
“The president and our campuswide team did tremendous work to gain an $80 million legislative appropriation and a $20 million private gift; it was an unbelievable accomplishment,” Markham says.
Chip Minty is a Norman-based writer and the principal of Minty Communications, LLC.
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