With the annoucement of PNW Information Services going away, I felt super nostalgic about all things PNW. So much has changed since I started work in the biology lab years ago and even since I transitioned into IT. I walked around campus in the afternoon and wandered through the Gyte Building which used to house the biology teaching, research, and prep labs.

Now all of these are classrooms except for the old Microbiology lab (G18) which has been remodeled but is still a lab. I think it also contains part of the room (G22) that used to be my office and prep lab because the autoclave was new and I’m hopeful it and the new cold room were retained. Though I suppose it doesn’t matter what they did with these. They aren’t my responsibility and haven’t been for a long time.

I looked through my old Facebook photos and through my photo archives to find pictures of the old rooms, since I couldn’t see them in person. They are mostly in the background of staff photos, silly photos for Facebook, or photos to quickly share with fellow staff to update them on what I had done.

We also had a plastic skeleton we dressed up for biology events and social media posts. We named her Dr. Bones. We knew she was female because of her pelvic structure.

The best photos are those I can’t show because they are of students- doing research, receiving awards, or presenting their research at conferences. I remember all the research projects. My favorites were working with the Dept. of Civil Engineering to develop “self-healing” concrete by impregnating concrete with bacterial spores that produced calcium carbonate when they germinated and determining the antibiotic properties of American Burying Beetle secretions. This last project involved quantifying the bacteria on a dead mouse. Good times.

I got to show so many students how to use an autoclave to sterilize equipment and media, how to use a centrifuge safely, how to isolate DNA, sterile technique for bacteria culture, how to make really difficult bacterial media. How to quantify aerobic bacteria present in a mouse carcass. We talked through research problems and I was often a sounding board for goals and career plans. I loved that so much. Even though I never considered myself a people person, these interactions with students were what I most loved about the job. When I started work in IT I thought I would get to work with even more students and faculty. At first, that was the case. As I became more of a systems admin, I spent less and less time with people. Now the only people I interact with for the most part are other admin. That really stinks.

But I am still friends with many of these former grad students on Facebook. They’re like seeds that we sent off into the world. They have sprouted so fantastically! I’m praying they share what they learned at PNW and use this knowledge to help people even if it is just that passion and drive never to stop learning, even if they don’t end up in biology.

You never know when knowing how to quantify the bacterial load of a dead mouse could come in handy! Life takes you in all kinds of unexpected directions.