Gray,
threatening skies could not dim the enthusiasm of the 200 faculty,
staff, alumni and friends of the School of Engineering who gathered
on Friday afternoon, May 26, to break ground for a
new engineering building, the first major bricks-and-mortar
project for the school in more than 25 years.
The crowd gathered at the southeast corner
of Jacobs Hall, where a tent had been erected. "This is a terrific
day for the School of Engineering," announced Dean Kenneth
F. Galloway, sporting a broad smile and a white hard hat. "The
new building and the renovation of adjacent places will energize
our faculty and serve our students well."
The $28 million project, scheduled for
completion late in 2001, is designed to showcase and enhance the
teaching and research activities currently being conducted in the
School. It consists of the demolition of the central wing of the
main engineering building and its replacement by an entirely new
teaching and research facility. In addition, the two remaining wings
of the building will be totally renovated. A tower, modeled after
the Kirkland Hall tower, is designed to give the School a "front
door" identity.
The facility will provide the School
with a number of new amenities, including wireless computer networking,
a three-story atrium, two large computer classrooms, a 120-person
multimedia classroom, study areas where engineering students can
relax and interact and dedicated rooms for student organizations.
The lead donor, William W. Featheringill,
BE'64, of Birmingham, Ala., got a big laugh when illustrating the
need to replace the outdated facilities. He spoke about trying to
give a talk recently in one of the old auditoriums that was equipped
with two window-mounted air conditioners. The air conditioner in
the back didn't work, so the back of the hall was hot. The one in
the front worked, but it was very noisy. "So I had to decide
whether I would be very warm and heard, or cool and drowned out,"
Featheringill recalled.
Erika Brown, who graduated May 12 with
a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering and is now a graduate
student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, represented
the student perspective. Engineering students "are told we
have to suffer," she said, adding that much of their suffering
was caused by the old building's deficiencies. "I told Dean
Galloway that the students would be happy to do the demolition-just
give us sledge hammers and the building will come tumbling down,"
she joked. Growing more serious, she concluded by earnestly thanking
the alumni and friends whose generous donations made the exciting
new project possible.
Read
a report on the building's progress
