Portland State University Visitors Guide - Flipbook - Page 20
PLANTING
THE SEEDS
PSU’S NEW VERNIER
SCIENCE CENTER AND AN
EMERGING DESTINATION
FOR INDIGENOUS SCIENCES
IN LATE 2019, plans began to take shape for
the renovation of PSU’s aging undergraduate
science building, now known as the Vernier
Science Center. Campus leadership saw it
as an opportunity to upgrade the space with
contemporary labs and learning spaces and
use the building as a vehicle for transforming
student outcomes for Oregon’s most diverse
student population in STEM.
The design process centered the voices and
lived experiences of students from groups
historically excluded and underrepresented in
STEM. Athena Rilatos (’20 M.Arch ’24) and
a dozen of her peers, all students of color, were
tapped to serve on a student advisory board,
bringing student perspectives to a year’s worth of
meetings with Bora Architects, campus planners
and facilities management.
The students dreamed up a space where they
could navigate easily, take care of their needs and
connect to nature — a space where they
would feel like they belonged and could
see a future for themselves in STEM.
“It can be hard to find those areas of
respite where you feel comfortable and
safe and like you can just be,” Rilatos, an
enrolled member of the Confederated
Tribes of Siletz Indians, said. “There’s
been so much intention in making the
Vernier Science Center feel like that.”
The building’s design reflects a desire
to expand the understanding of what
science is and what research looks
like at PSU. It draws inspiration from
and uplifts Indigenous Traditional
Ecological and Cultural Knowledge,
or ITECK — a body of continually
evolving observations, oral and written
knowledge, innovations, practices and
beliefs that tribes have developed over
many generations about the relationship
of living beings with one another and
their environment.
The six-story Vernier Science Center is home to state-of-the-art teaching labs, classrooms
and learning spaces that support collaboration, exploratory learning and authentic research
experiences; easily accessible student supports; and culturally affirming spaces where students
can feel a sense of belonging.
Por tland State Universit y
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