For the first 49 years of its life, students packing the inside of classrooms inside the Southwestern Michigan College’s William P.D. O’Leary Building were studying nearly everything BUT science.

One of the original three structures erected on the community college campus, the structure has been a home for everything from English, philosophy and history classes to housing the office of the college president throughout its history.

The building’s auditorium even served as a venue for the college play productions before the construction of the theater at the Dale A. Lyons Building.

Looking at a quarter of million dollars worth of microscopes, Bunsen burners, model skeletons now contained inside the recently renovated building, it is apparent the humanities have moved out, and STEM has finally set up shop in its stead.

The Dowagiac college invited the public to tour the recently reopened O’Leary Building Wednesday evening, during a special business after hours event hosted by the Greater Dowagiac Chamber of Commerce. More than 50 guests from around the Cass County community were attendance, getting a chance to see the new classrooms and meet some of the college’s science staff.

The opening of the new science building fulfills the college’s nearly decade-long ambition to update its STEM offerings to students without disrupting classes, said SMC President David Mathews during a presentation to attendees. Instead of building a completely new structure, the school decided to spend more than $8 million dollars to renovate O’Leary and its sister building, Daugherty, with the former becoming a science building and the latter housing humanities.

“We have made every effort to both modernize and save as much money possible,” Mathews said.

While the outside structure may appear similar to its prior appearance, the inside of the new science building is almost unrecognizable to what it was before, housing a physics, chemistry and two biology labs.

“There’s nothing 1965ish looking about this building,” Mathews said.

Among the guests taking a peek at the building Wednesday were the children of the building’s namesake, William P.D. O’Leary, who was one of the founding members of the college board of trustees. O’Leary’s son, Tim, took the opportunity to thank the current slate of college board members and the school administration for their recent work.

“I want to thank you all for continuing my dad’s dream, and making it a reality,” O’Leary said.