TWO FOUNDATIONS DONATE $500,000 TOWARD EDUCATION CENTER AT LONG MARINE LAB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The University of California, Santa Cruz, has received gifts totaling $500,000 from two private foundations toward the construction of an Education Center at the Joseph M. Long Marine Laboratory. The Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation of Oakland donated $300,000 for the project, while the J. M. Long Foundation of Walnut Creek provided $200,000.

To date, donors and foundations have committed about $1.9 million to the center, which will dramatically enhance the lab's education programs for schoolchildren and the general public. Project planners estimate that the 12,000-square-foot facility will cost $4.4 million for construction and exhibitions. Aside from $500,000 in state money for a teaching lab in part of the new complex, private support will provide most of the funds.

"Gifts such as those from the Valley Foundation and the J. M. Long Foundation are crucial to the successful completion of this important project," says Daniel Aldrich, assistant chancellor for University Advancement at UCSC. "We appreciate their investment in the university's education programs at a time when public understanding of marine research is vital to global well-being."

The Valley Foundation was created by the late F. Wayne Valley and Gladys Valley to provide grants for education, medical research, and community and social services, primarily to universities and agencies in the east San Francisco Bay Area. F. Wayne Valley was founder and major owner of Citation Builders of San Leandro and was an initial general partner of the Oakland Raiders.

The J. M. Long Foundation was established by the late Joseph M. Long, cofounder and past chairman of the board of Longs Drug Stores and a major benefactor of both UCSC and the Long Marine Lab, which bears his name. The foundation benefits organizations in the western U.S. involved with health care, medical research, education, wildlife conservation, and land preservation.

A conceptual design for the Education Center calls for interactive exhibits with changeable components for various age groups, a teaching lab for university classes and programs for local schools, a bookstore and gift shop, staff offices, outdoor viewing areas, a courtyard containing the lab's skeleton of a blue whale, and a 100-seat auditorium. Work could begin as early as next summer; construction would last about fifteen months.

The center will fill the need for a permanent home for Long Marine Lab's public activities. Since it opened in 1978, the lab has housed many of the scientific programs of UCSC's Institute of Marine Sciences. Unlike other research facilities, however, Long Marine Lab also plays a key role in teaching visitors about the Monterey Bay environment. Up to 40,000 people visit the lab each year, including schoolchildren whose trips are arranged months in advance. More than 130 volunteers and docents lead tours and demonstrations for these groups.

Because of the lab's limited space and staffing, many school groups cannot visit each year. Educational programs occur in a trailer, while the lab's museum, aquarium, and touch tanks occupy other small areas. In addition, the general public may visit the lab for just three hours each day. The new center promises to change all that.

"We've expanded our public programs in recent years, but our facilities haven't kept pace," says Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences. "The Education Center represents a chance for us to build a first-class program by bringing in more people and events and showing more effectively how research is carried out."

Dorris Welch-Burman, the lab's public education director, estimates that at least four times as many schoolchildren will use the new center. Exhibits will give hands-on information about marine animals, conservation, and careers in marine science to students in primary, intermediate, middle, and high schools. Touch tanks, "discovery labs" with microscopes and magnified pools, skeletons and fossils, and interactive panels will provide students a feel for marine-lab research. The building's design, Welch-Burman notes, will foster this experience: It will not be a formal aquarium, but rather a more rough-hewn and natural extension of the sights, sounds, and smells of the lab itself.

Public visiting hours will expand to seven hours a day, with both self-guided and docent tours available. A multimedia exhibit with a computer and laserdisc system will let guests explore various aspects of lab research at their own pace. New bilingual signs and exhibits will make the lab more open to Spanish-speaking visitors. Finally, the auditorium will provide space for large groups and will allow the lab's popular summer lecture series to occur throughout the year.

The center's exact location depends upon the resolution of the Terrace Point Properties project next to Long Marine Lab, currently under review. If a satisfactory project is approved, Wells Fargo Bank has indicated a willingness to donate about twelve acres of land to UCSC for open space, the Education Center, and a building for the Branch of Pacific Marine Geology of the U.S. Geological Survey. The Education Center would sit back from the coastal bluff and provide dramatic ocean views from two decks. Without this land, Long Marine Lab would expand more tightly on its existing property; the center would overlook the adjoining Younger Lagoon Natural Reserve.

SRG Partnership, an architect/design group from Portland, Oregon, will design the Education Center with BIOS, an exhibit design group from Seattle. This team collaborated on the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, and Washington's striking Mount St. Helens Visitors Center.

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