Setting up a private server for a university network

Hello,

I have been tasked with helping the university I attend to set up a server in one of the computer labs. Currently the set up has the wires coming into the switch in the room, which then connects to the individual computers to get them on the network. What we want to do is have a server where we can do various things for classes like make a test viruses, but without any of this effecting the school's network. I was wondering if anyone could give me suggestions to how to possibly go about this. One idea we had was to make it dual-homed, but I don't know if the computers have wi-fi built in to make this possible nor would I know how to go about doing this. Another concern would be convincing the school that the firewall is strong enough to protect the network from the server side. Any suggestions or information would be very much appreciated.