The Lab recorder is an optional audio artifact in the room with the caged monkeys in the university science building. Go to the large table on the right and pick it up from the corner.
A worker finishes packing pallets of lab equipment and talks to the test monkeys, refusing an order to put down a tainted batch.
Mid-sentence, one of the monkeys bites him. It suggests he is the same man whose final message you hear on the Firefly's recorder later in the chapter, and why he never left with the others.
Firefly's recorder
The Firefly's recorder is an automatic artifact in the university science building. Joel picks it up from a dead Firefly in a cutscene, so it cannot be missed, and you can play the whole message later from the Artifacts menu.
Free Radicals
Free Radicals, issue 7 of Savage Starlight, is on the rusty hood of a car up the hill behind you as The University begins.
Fungal X-rays
The Fungal X-rays are an optional artifact in the university science building. After you follow Ellie through the short tunnel, turn left and check the far table next to the window.
Griggs's Firefly Pendant
Griggs's Firefly pendant lies on a table in the last tent of a camp outside the science building, in the Go Big Horns section of The University. It belonged to Erik Griggs.