7 minute read
Cover Story
The Dorman Move
By Barry Stewart, Ph.D.
Ch-ch-changesJust gonna have to be a different manTime may change meBut I can’t trace time
— from “Changes” by David Bowie
For the last 25 years, I have had the privilege of teaching many courses in Dorman Hall and the Dorman Hall Greenhouse classroom at Mississippi State University. In that time, I have not taught in another building at MSU, save for a few labs in the classroom/crew room at the MSU Golf Course. This will change. On May 17, Dorman Hall was locked, and a two- to three-year (most likely three-year) renovation has begun.
Phase I of the project will upgrade the HVAC system in the building. All the air-handling equipment currently located on the roof of the building will be upgraded and installed in the basement. In addition, the building will be added to the chilled water loop on the west side of campus, which will save on heating and cooling costs. There will also be some roof work. The budget for Phase I is $32 million. Phase II of the project, if funded, would add sizable restrooms to the large auditorium end of the building; these would be accessible during football games and other events. Staining the building brick to a more maroon hue and adding a roof façade might also be included in Phase II.
So, what happens to the MSU Turf Team? The turf faculty and graduate students and the Mississippi Turfgrass Association Office have been moved to the 5th floor of Rice Hall. Our labs have been moved to Walker Engineering Building. I am concerned that we will be isolated from our undergraduate students. Will they come to visit us in a building that they do not have classes in? It will not be as easy to just pop in after a class. The office space in Rice differs from that of Dorman, square footage-wise; the new offices include storage space and are a bit bigger. Now, there is less distance between offices (the long dimension of each office is door-to-back-wall), but the rooms are narrower. Should you come to visit us, we will have room to meet you.
The Horticulture, Soils, and Forage/Alternative Crops groups will also be officed in Rice Hall; the Labs for Horticulture and Soils are also in Walker. The Forage/Alternative Crops labs will be at the Forage Unit on South Farm. In the interim, the Weed Science Team has moved their offices and labs to Hill Poultry Science Building. The PSS administrative offices are situated in Walker Engineering.
Although there have been many changes, our mailing address and phone numbers will remain the same.
This move has been a massive undertaking, and we thank Dr. Cory Gallo, Assistant Dean and Assistant MAFES Director; Dr. Darrin Dodds, PSS Department Head, Interim Associate Director, and MAFES Operations lead; and Mr. Eric Laiche, Building Manager, for their leadership in facilitating this move. Every week since February, there has been a dumpster or a moving truck at Dorman Hall. The move was a difficult thing, especially because we were all forced to make decisions about what to dispose of and what to keep. This was probably harder on more experienced (older) faculty who had been in Dorman for 20 or 30 years. During that amount of time, one accumulates a lot of stuff. Many books that once graced faculty offices ended up in recycling, as their information was either outdated or available online. The change in analytical methods could also be seen. We used to use wet chemistry to analyze soil and plant tissue. Many procedures have since been replaced by simpler automated analyses, so obsolete glassware and chemicals were disposed of.
Dorman Hall was built on the former location of Dudy Noble Field. The baseball field was closed in 1964, and Dorman Hall was constructed in 1965 and 1966. When it opened, it housed Forestry and Plant Sciences. I am sure things have changed in the building through the years; for example, I know that the second floor was mostly administrative at one time. Of course, at that time there were many more departments, Agronomy which housed Turf, Horticulture, Weed Science and Plant Pathology, and Soils; these were combined to form Plant and Soil Sciences in 1993. Biochemistry was also located in Dorman and Forestry moved out when Thompson Hall was completed in 1993.
When the doors closed for renovation, Dorman Hall housed the Department of Plant and Soil Science and the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology, and Plant Pathology. Approximately 200 faculty members and graduate and post-doctoral students had offices in Dorman Hall. Each day, Dorman classrooms accommodated approximately 1,000 students from across the campus. This semester, my Plant Science Course followed a section of Sociology 1503. I know the closing of Dorman Hall will be felt across campus; Dorman 140 (the spacious auditorium) and Dorman 128 are two heavily used large classrooms, and that type of room is in limited supply.
It is likely that the parking lot behind Dorman Hall will be used as a staging area for the renovation and will probably be dug up at some point to accommodate the chilled water loop. Parking for the greenhouse will be in the south side parking lot.
Next semester, I will be teaching courses in the Simrall Electrical Engineering Building (a building I have never set foot in) and Allen Hall. (I find it interesting that none of the Engineering Buildings are called halls?) Thankfully, the Dorman Greenhouses will still be open, and the greenhouse classroom will host a heavy load of PSS classes. The Turf Seminar will meet in the greenhouse classroom, as well as the labs for turfgrass management. Teaching in new buildings will make us more organized. Not being able to run back to the office for a forgotten USB drive or phone (for two-factor security) will not be possible.
Rice Hall, our new office space, is a former women’s dormitory that opened in 1968 and housed about 500 students. The building was named for Nannie Herndon Rice, who worked to build and uplift the library facilities at MSU. She also served as secretary of the Mississippi Women’s Suffrage Movement. Rice Hall was slated to be torn down in the summer of 2020, but that was delayed due to COVID-19. Then, other needs led to its renovation. Currently, the Psychology Department occupies the first and second floors of Rice Hall. The Department of Kinesiology now utilizes space on the third and fourth floors while they wait for completion of their new home, The Duff Center, at the site of the former McCarthy Gym. Most of the PSS personnel are housed on the 5th floor of Rice Hall, but we will also have offices on the 7th floor. There is a parking lot on the south side of the building that is not within the gated inner campus; should you come for a campus visit, we will most likely meet you at Rice.
These are big changes. Please bear with us as we adjust to them. We will continue to engage in our turfgrass teaching, research, and outreach efforts to the best of our abilities. Thank you for your continued support. •
