Each week nearly a third of Stetson’s undergraduates walk through the doors of Sage Hall to study the natural sciences. The number of science majors has risen almost 25 percent in the last decade. Moreover, a degree in any of the University’s three undergraduate colleges – Arts and Sciences, Business, and Music – includes coursework in laboratory science.

Science has always been central to liberal learning on the campus. In 1883 the faculty of Henry DeLand’s Academy identified “the scientific course” as one of three academic paths toward an education in intellectual and moral power. Within a decade, plans began to emerge for a new building for science and technology: Flagler Hall – designed to be the best of its kind in the region. With that expansion across Woodland Boulevard, Stetson moved into the 20th century.

By the mid-1960s, the international race to conquer space was on. Science was housed in various buildings across the campus, and the University recognized the need for a new facility with updated laboratories and more powerful equipment. In 1967 Sage Hall opened for biology, chemistry, and physics, and, as the announcement put it, “just at a time when the Space Age is revealing so many new and exciting vistas in science.”

Now some 40 years later, the sciences no longer break neatly into these separate disciplines. The sciences increasingly blend and overlap, merging old disciplines into new fields such as biochemistry, environmental science, and integrative health science. In all fields, collaborative teaching and research are vital to faculty and students. The critical inquiry, problem-solving, and imaginative analysis fostered by the study of science are now, as ever, at the center of the Stetson academic experience. The University’s core values – from environmental responsibility to health and wellness, to ethical decision-making – require the lively pursuit of the natural sciences.