The main building is open for instruction this fall. I assume the new Wesleyan Place courtyard will continue to evolve as they start the process to tear down Hall-Atwater and remodel historic Shanklin Hall.
4 Likes
A CC Exclusive!!!
The main entrance, technically on the second floor, opens to a two-story high atrium where students gather outside a coffee shop/cafe
Personally, I found the most striking architectural feature to be a sweeping view of the central campus from the third floor.
<Floor to ceiling glass walls and sliding doors are everywhere like this “ghost corridor” connecting a row of labs.
The fourth and highest floor has some pretty neat views of Middletown and points east.
5 Likes
The Argus (the Wesleyan student newspaper) covered the LSB’s opening last week:
The building’s opening coincides with a 30.7% increase in STEM major enrollment since 2016, per the University’s Spring semester major reports. Neuroscience and Behavior and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry were among the University’s most popular majors in 2026.
[snip]
“This is the kind of building that you would expect to find, and you would find at an R1 university,” [Professor of Biology and Integrative Sciences Ruth] Johnson said. “We’ve been doing good research all along. Now this building is going to challenge us to do even better.”
Life Sciences Building Debuts Despite Donor Controversy – The Wesleyan Argus
3 Likes
I think that is true (increase in STEM) at a lot of places. Obviously Dartmouth is an R1 and bigger, but not exact Michigan or UW either…and traditionally was lots of Govt/Econ/social science-y people.
1 Like
You’ll never get an argument about Dartmouth’s true values from a NESCAC college. 
1 Like
I read that piece.
Further challenging the oft-heard [here] lazy description of Wesleyan as an “artsy” school. It’s actually one of the best LACs in the country for study in the hard sciences. And that was before the facilities upgrade.
But people need their labels.
1 Like
I mean, they manage the largest integrated health network in northern New England, have a medical school, a T10 graduate business school that competes on brand with the college almost to the extent that Wharton does with Penn, an engineering school and a fulsome offering of PhD programs in its graduate school. The bucolic setting of Hanover notwithstanding, they crossed that Rubicon a while ago. Princeton may be closer.
Another great article in this week’s The Argus