For the past five years, the construction company Walsh Brothers had been building the Integrated Sciences Complex (ISC) building on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. April 1st was the official ribbon cutting. Many people attended this event, such as Mayor Marty Walsh, President of UMass Boston Robert Caret, and of course Chancellor J. Keith Motley and so many others.

The Integrated Science Complex building was built for students and faculty access, engagement, and success with research, teaching, and training laboratories. It is the first academic building built on campus in 40 years. The ISC was open for classes and research in time for Spring Semester 2015 back in January. Students were grateful to be able to have access to these new materials.

“It is a brand new [building], everything works in the lab which makes it easier for us, and it’s always a pleasure to work with material that is actually working,” said Yvan Bouyou, soon to be a graduate of UMass Boston with a chemistry major. “The building is pretty as well.”

This new $182 million academic building is filled with wet and dry research laboratories and support space, four new undergraduate introductory Biology teaching labs, and an interdisciplinary undergraduate sandbox teaching lab. There is also an infant cognition lab, as well as the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy, a partnership with the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

This building shows the steps that UMass Boston is planning for our future as an educational institute. Motley has set the bar high for future academic buildings. The ISC brings the newest technology as well as the newest research; it’s preparing the newest generation for the working world.

“[The] only public university located in the city of Boston and most diverse university in New England to be actively engaged in the development and developing the talent for producing the research we all need,” said UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Victor Woolridge. “This new facility will support those efforts not only through the collaboration and partnership but also by the educational opportunity that students are provide”

The building was designed by Boston-based architectural firm Goody Clancy. The Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance managed the project.