Chaparral 2023-2024: Nostalgia by Jean Lecuyer

External pictures of Buena Vista Building

Nostalgia by Jean Lecuyer

Now that the Physics department has moved to the top of the new Science building, the sight of the empty rooms that it left behind on the first floor of the CR (Camino Real) building fills me with nostalgia.  

Part of it is that I had the privilege of teaching there for 30 years and with a colleague, Rick Guglielmino, who was one of the best teachers at the college. Another part of it is because these rooms have seen the development of several programs that have had a positive impact on the whole college.  

I think for instance of what is now the Math Discovery Center. Steve Marsden and I started it in 1980 at a time when Math and Physical Sciences were all in the same division. So, we called it the “Math-Science Center” and when we looked for a place to put it, Rick was kind enough to relocate some of the physics labs and vacate an optics lab for us to use.  

Initially, except for a few students trained by Steve, all the tutors were faculty: we simply asked all our colleagues in the division to volunteer a few hours a week in the center. It soon became obvious though that the main users of the center were Math students; Physical Science students tended to hang around their labs to get help. So, when Math became a separate division, we gave them the Center and they have made it a big success ever since.   Another program that started in the Physics labs is the SI (Supplemental Instruction) program. When we got the money from a title III grant to start it, we looked for places where we could schedule SI sessions. Again, Rick was very accommodating and let us use part of one of our labs and part of our stockroom to make two SI rooms; and that's how we got the program started.  

The Science Lecture series also started in that same place. A pair of Social Sciences teachers approached us in 1979 to offer a set of three lectures to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein. They gave two of the lectures and I gave the other in the large science lecture hall next to the Physics stockroom. These lectures proved popular and the following year we agreed to make the Science lecture a monthly event and I took charge of it and started it in that same lecture hall before eventually moving it to the large lecture hall in Chemistry.  

The SI room that was in the Physics stockroom also turned out to be a convenient meeting room for some Senate committees like the DFA (Distinguished Faculty Award) and the Parker committee.  

One other program that started there is the section of the Science Center Outreach Program that we now do on the first floor of the CS building.  Initially the large room there was meant to be for a science exhibit in the style of the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  So, we asked our physics students to prepare interesting exhibits that we could put there for everybody at the college to see, and they did, and some of these exhibits are still there.  But the room did not attract very many visitors.  

However, at that time young student visitors to the planetarium were also given a tour of the college and the exhibits attracted their attention; so, we started including that room in their tour and giving them explanations about the exhibits.  That worked, some, but the kids showed only limited interest, so it became obvious that we should find a way to get them involved more.   

That’s when we started giving them a little equipment and getting them to do what we called science activities.  A good example, and one of our first such activities, is the electricity one where we give the students battery, lamp and wires and ask them to make some simple circuits.  These hands-on activities turned out to be very popular, both with students and their teachers, and so we have expanded the program to offer a variety of these activities and it’s now a great success; rated as well as the planetarium presentation itself. So, all together there are a lot of pleasant memories associated with the old Physics headquarters. It was really a great place. 

Jean Lecuyer