NSU Currents Spring 2014 Newsletter - Volume XXIV, Issue 1

6 Oceanographic Center Celebrates NSU’s 50th Anniversary From left: the OC 50th Anniversary Committee members are Wendy Wood, Melissa Dore, Corinne Lee, and Joshua Appelt. A classroom on the original houseboat The Oceanographic Center: then and now In January, the Oceanographic Center participated in the NSU 50th Anniversary Celebration Salute on the fourth floor of the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center. For one week, NSU students and faculty and staff members were able to look into the Oceanographic Center’s past, present, and future. Established in 1966, the Oceanographic Center (OC) was one of the first high-level academic divisions of what was then known as Nova University of Advanced Technology, nowNova Southeastern University (NSU). The initial OC was located on a large houseboat that was docked on 15th Street in Fort Lauderdale. Since its inception, the Oceanographic Center has focused on both research and education. This early emphasis provided opportunities for the university to establish a reputation in the research and academic community. Several of the university’s first 17 graduates were from the OC. From 1969 to 1970, the Oceanographic Center moved to its current location in Port Everglades, adjacent to the Navy base. Land was donated by Broward County. Charles and Hamilton Forman were responsible for establishing the marina and the first building at the site. Today, students, scientists, and faculty and staff members from all corners of the globe share space at the OC. They all have the common goal of understanding the nature of the marine realm and learning from the ocean’s marine classrooms. The Oceanographic Center is still located on the entrance channel of Port Everglades in Hollywood, Florida, near Dania Beach and Fort Lauderdale; spans 10 acres; and is home to a large marina, affording immediate access to coastal and open-ocean environments and ecosystems. The campus includes four buildings that house a research library for the many disciplines of marine science offered at the OC, an auditorium, an electron microscopy laboratory, teaching and research labs, a computing center and classroom, and an outside experimentation facility. The last building, the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research, was completed in 2012. This environmentally friendly, 86,000-square-foot facility is a silver LEED, state-of the-art research building that includes a seawater system and experimental complex for pollution evaluation. More than 70 percent of the extramural research grants and contracts of the entire university come from the OC’s scientific productivity. Researchers in the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Ecosystems Research