Fordham University’s Louis Calder Center Biological Station received a $202,697 grant from the National Science Foundation to build student housing at its 113-acre preserve in Armonk, N.Y.
“Lack of on-site housing for students has been a constant battle for years,” said John Wehr, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and director of the Calder Center. “Because students spend a large amount of time here, they need to be able to live here rather than commute every day from as far as New Jersey and Brooklyn.”
The center is planning to build three modern log cabins that can accommodate as many as four students each. Wehr is hopeful construction will begin this summer.
The new housing will enhance the training of current students by eliminating commutes as long as two hours, while also making the facility more attractive to prospective students from outside the New York metropolitan area. Only three of the center’s 15 full-time graduate students who conduct research at the facility year round live currently on site.
“As soon as we have broken ground for the cabins, we will begin a vigorous effort to recruit students from across the country,” said Wehr.
Founded in 1967, the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station is used to train biologists for work in environmental science and conservation. The center has a 10-acre lake for aquatic studies, a modern laboratory for biological and chemical analyses, and forest, field and wetland habitats for teaching and conducting research in ecology and conservation.
