The Derby Center for Science and Mathematics at Lyon College will be dedicated April 22. The dedication ceremony at 4 p.m. also will include the presentation of an honorary degree to Dr. Alan G. MacDiarmid, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.

The ceremony will be held in Couch Garden on the north side of the Derby Center.

Construction of the 60,854-square-foot building was completed in December. The $11.8 million facility serves all Lyon College students and houses the college’s anthropology, biology, chemistry, computer science, environmental studies, mathematics, physics and psychology programs.

Dr. MacDiarmid, the Blanchard Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000. He shared the honor with two other scientists. The prize was awarded for work all three had done in the discovery and development of conductive polymers (plastics that conduct electricity).

The holder of 30 U.S. patents, MacDiarmid, 76, recently accepted the James Von Ehr Distinguished Chair in Science and Technology, and also the position of professor of chemistry and physics, at the University of Texas at Dallas while maintaining his Blanchard Chair in Chemistry, at a reduced level of input, at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lyon broke ground on the state-of-the-art science facility on April 26, 2001. It was built in two phases. The Bellingrath Wing, the classroom and laboratory section, was completed in December 2002 and the first classes were held in it in January 2003.

The old Smith Science Building, which was adjacent to the new facility, was then razed to make room for the second phase, which consists of two wings extending into Couch Garden and includes additional classrooms, faculty offices and labs. The new wings were occupied in December and the entire facility is being used this semester.

The building is named in honor of Lawrence H. Derby Jr. and in memory of his late wife, Marilyn Church Derby, of Warren, whose leadership gift helped make the building possible. Derby is a member of Lyon’s Board of Trustees.

The Bellingrath Wing is named in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Ferd M. Bellingrath Jr. of Pine Bluff, in recognition of their leadership gift to the college. Mr. Bellingrath is a former Lyon trustee.

When the Bellingrath Wing was formally opened, Dr. Walter Roettger, president of Lyon, said the facility provides “teaching and learning space worthy of the aspirations of our students and talents of our faculty.”

“The Bellingrath Wing and the Derby Center are acts of fulfillment and faith,” Dr. Roettger said. “The Bellingrath Wing fulfills a promise made by the college to build an institution of enduring value and growing consequence that offers educational opportunities second to none to the sons and daughters of this community, state and region.”

Nabholz Construction Corp. of Conway was the general contractor for the project, and Larry Kirchner, president of Kirchner Architecture of Little Rock, was the building architect.

The lower level of the Derby Center features a 72-seat auditorium, three tiered classrooms, three seminar rooms and dedicated storage space for hazardous materials.

The chemistry laboratories are on the top floor. They include three instructional labs with preparation and setup rooms, specialized labs for instruction and research in instrumentation, nuclear magnetic resonance and laser applications, plus five faculty research labs for faculty and student-faculty research.

The second floor houses the biology labs, including three instructional labs, specialized labs for instruction and research in instrumentation, radioactivity and the environment. This floor also has five faculty research labs and a walk-in cold room.

The labs are furnished with 54 fume hoods, including 12 in the organic chemistry teaching lab. The fume hoods serve as exhausts for fumes created by chemical reactions. There is one special fume hood station in each lab designed to be easily operated by students with physical disabilities.

The programs housed in the science building are among the most popular at the college. For instance, 45 percent of the 2002 graduating class majored in the programs housed in the science center, and 41 percent of the declared majors in the fall of 2002 were in those same program areas.

The Derby Center is more than twice as large as the Smith Building, which was approximately 28,000 square feet in size. The new building is expected to accommodate anticipated program and enrollment growth for two decades.

An interactive tour of the Derby Center can be found at www.lyon.edu/derbytour.