September 26, 2025, will forever mark a distinct trajectory-altering moment—a Quantum Moment—in Claremont McKenna College’s historic timeline:
Life and learning before the Robert Day Sciences Center. Life and learning after the Robert Day Sciences Center.
On a day bursting with anticipation and emotion, accomplishment and pride, community and connection, one common thread could be found in almost every reflection on the enormity of the official dedication of CMC’s iconic new integrated sciences building.
Gratitude.
By filling the grand space with heartfelt moments of awe and appreciation, the dedication and ribbon cutting in front of a packed, newly-christened Chodosh Social Stairs took students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests on a sprawling journey powered by an entire community of leadership.
After a daylong series of recognitions and events, Heather Antecol P’29, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty and James G. Boswell Professor of Economics, opened the evening program by marking the history of the moment.
She marveled at the rare occurrence to see “an idea coalesce into a physical form that you can touch and walk around," giving extensive thanks to the alumni, philanthropic partners, students, faculty, and staff who were now “gathered in a place that was a sketch on paper not even five years ago.” As caretakers of an ambitious playground for teaching and learning, she spoke glowingly of the world-class faculty who are leading the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences and its “new way of thinking—about science and the liberal arts; about the discovery of new knowledge; about the ways we come together to inspire our students to pursue their own revolutionary ideas.”
“This is a place where computation, the sciences, humanities, and social sciences converge, preparing students to tackle complex, real-world challenges with insight and purpose. The design ethos itself—its lightness and its openness—echoes our academic objectives: to imagine new possibilities of collaboration, to break down silos, and to allow ideas to cross boundaries as freely as the people who work here,” Antecol said.
“Today, we celebrate so much more than the grandeur of this building. Now, the work of educating our students, opening these new doors of knowledge, and charting a path to the future of scientific understanding across disciplines surges forward in this space.”
Antecol introduced Ran Libeskind-Hadas, Kravis Professor of Integrated Sciences: Computational Biology and Founding Chair, who cleverly echoed the new hope of Star Wars by praising CMC’s “bold plan for integration across many dimensions … a true integration of all learners into one alliance … and an approach that explores connections across fields and prepares students to be Jedi problem-solvers.”
“Building this ambitious program required extraordinary generosity from many friends of the College,” he added. “All of us in the department are deeply grateful for that support, and we are honored to work in offices, labs, and teaching spaces made possible by these donors.”
Guest of honor Bjarke Ingels, the founder of BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and creative visionary for the Robert Day Sciences Center, spoke to the power of architecture to inspire and innovate. A globally-recognized figure for his jaw-dropping designs across a series of landmark buildings worldwide, he touched on the intentionality behind CMC’s showpiece structure as “a distributor of flows” that will set the stage for future development through the Roberts Campus expansion. Ingels emphasized how the RDSC’s combination of the rational—the need for technical spaces to do the work required of an interdisciplinary curriculum—and the experimental—the embrace of flexibility, openness, and imagination—will create serendipitous interactions and conversations that can change the world.
“The way that you provide new knowledge is that if you facilitate and invite sparks to fly between people and between fields of knowledge, those elements can come together and actually create the eureka moments, the inventions and the innovations that will define the sciences in the future,” Ingels said.
In paying tribute to an inspiration for the entire effort, Donna Wengert Neff remembered her late husband Tom Neff ‘76 P’21, a CMC Trustee who helped shape the College’s early integrated sciences vision before his unexpected passing in 2019. She noted how Tom found a true partner in maximizing the same potential: President Hiram Chodosh.
Earlier in the day, President Chodosh dedicated Neff Family Plaza near the RDSC atrium with Donna, noting how Tom—his “closest adviser on how to best meet the challenges we faced and the opportunities we both wanted”—gave him the courage he needed to move forward with a “disruptive plan for the sciences.” Wengert Neff returned those sentiments by saluting “my friend, President Chodosh,” for bringing everyone with him on this incredible adventure: “I only wished Tom could be here to see it.”
Reflecting his awe on this special day, President Chodosh shared how he “felt like a little boy in the building,” still processing the “shock in seeing the real thing.” Inspired by a speech about pursuing one’s North Star shared by CMC Trustee Doug Peterson ’80 P’14 P’15 the night before, he added: “It is only through a powerful act of our imagination that we can chart our way North. Today, we celebrate the power of our imagination and the realization of vision at its finest.”
President Chodosh proceeded to thank the many CMC community members who made the Robert Day Sciences Center possible, drawing back to his Quantum Moment theme from Convocation as a guiding spirit for the “launch pad” to “the CMC rocket now piercing the sky in increasingly steep trajectory.” Playing off the multiple definitions for quantum, he cited the “smallest acts of goodness to create our civitas, the triumph of and over the mutually exclusive either-or,” and the “long, unparalleled jump into the future” brought forth by each bold step, each new opportunity at the College.
“CMC is an exemplar for how to pull people together. To live and learn together. To dream big. To co-author the vision and strategy. To attract and steward the resources. To implement and execute. All hand in hand,” he said.
With a quiver in his voice, President Chodosh implored the crowd to look up at the rectangular rotations above them, to become transfixed by Damián Ortega’s magnificent Magnetic Field sculpture, and feel its pull into the CMC center. He closed with a motivating message to students, “the current and future generations to come,” that will now get to harness the full potential of their “new CMC home.” The crown jewel Robert Day Sciences Center and all that it encompasses.
“These are your stairs to ascend.
This is your laboratory.
This is your studio.
This is your Agora, your forum for exchange.
This is your atrium to keep your eye on the sky.
This is your mall to pursue the Northern star.
This is your magnetic spot.
Now it is up to you to make the most of this Quantum Moment.
Cherish it.
Honor the hope we place in you.
Fulfill the belief we have in you.
Become the future we all want to see in the world.
You are why we are here today.
We dedicate this building, this program to you.”
Read President Chodosh’s full evening remarks.
Read about recognitions earlier in the day, including the naming of the Chodosh Social Stairs.
View some of our favorite photos from dedication day below.
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