General Facility Management Issues

Facility Hours of Operation & Accessibility

The Science Center’s regular business hours are aligned with the rest of the College’s academic buildings (Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm). However, the Science Center’s academic teaching and social spaces are generally open and accessible to the community between the hours of 6:00 am and 11:00 pm, seven days per week. Between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am, access is controlled through the “card access system”, such that only Science employees and approved students may use or gain access to the facility through their Hill Card. Those who wish to grant students additional facility access through this approval process must contact Auxiliary Services to enable the appropriate Hill Cards, and conform to other considerations as noted below.

See the “Stockroom Services” section for additional information on keys and keypad codes.

Laboratory Access & Use

Science Center labs with recognized occupational or environmental hazards are generally unrestricted to employees regularly assigned to those labs. However, students accessing and using labs for the purpose of regular coursework must be supervised at all times by a regular college employee—faculty member, administrator or staff. Restricted students (as defined by our Chemical Hygiene Plan) include compensated undergraduate researchers or senior thesis students, and are given special access and use privileges outside of supervised time frames, with the following conditions:

• Additional training applies (through the EHS office);

• The work must be approved by their lab supervisor as involving low or no hazardous activity; and
• They may not work alone.

Laboratory Security Measures

All teaching and research lab spaces with recognized occupational or environmental hazards must be secured against unauthorized entry, so as to prevent theft, releases/spills, sabotage or security breaches. To achieve this requirement, the following shall apply:

• Teaching lab (and any adjacent prep spaces) security shall be provided through locked doors, and are only to be unlocked and accessible during the teaching periods when such spaces are actively in use.
• Research lab security shall also be provided through locked doors, as well as restricted access to those trained and authorized to use the lab. Further, while it is inadvisable to ever unlock a research lab door, certain exceptions are permissible during the summer research timeframe, when the majority of the work in any given lab involves a number of trained and authorized research personnel.