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Spring Welcome Back Issue 2017
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University of Wisconsin-Madison
MORGAN WINSTON/THE DAILY CARDINAL
Construction on UW-Madison’s Chemistry building is slated to begin this fall, which aims to ease departmental concerns about overcrowding and outdated facilities.
Campus building projects wait for approval amid limited state funding Story by Andrew Bahl and Madeline Heim For many at UW-Madison, construction is a way of life. Disgruntled students ceded Memorial Union to renovations last year and buildings, such as the Hector DeLuca Biochemical Sciences Complex, dot the campus landscape when they did not exist five years prior. Yet while the cranes, orange cones
and hard hats may seem omnipresent, there are still scores of buildings in need of upgrades or maintenance. These projects are encompassed in the UW System’s biennial capital budget request, which lays out what state funding and bonding projects are needed at each of the state’s 16 public universities and UW-Extensions. One of those projects, UW-Madison’s Chemistry building, has been slated to be remodeled for many years. The university says the current facility is too crowded as demand for science courses has soared. Efrey Noten, an undergraduate research assistant in the chemis-
try department, agrees, noting the lack of space and outdated facilities have rendered laboratories unsafe for researchers. “Inside the labs, there’s not fume hoods for everyone, so you’re doing all those experiments out on the benchtop,” Noten said. “And that’s not the greatest idea. Not that they’re especially dangerous all the time, but if something weird happens, if a flask tips over or … any strange event happens, there’s nothing to contain it. So you’ll get all these fumes that everyone is exposed to.” UW-Madison first proposed renovating the 50-year-old building in 2012. The state approved
$86 million for the project—80 percent of the university’s request—in the 2015-’17 budget and the state Building Commission gave its blessing late last year. Construction for the project’s first phase is now slated to begin in November, estimated to be completed in 2019. It will include a new eight-story tower for lecture halls, teaching laboratories and lab write-up spaces for undergraduates. And once the university finds resources to make up the rest of the funds needed for the project, the building will also receive renovations to its basement and the Daniels wing, which houses more
laboratories and classrooms. Noten said the additions can’t come fast enough, as they would eliminate crowding concerns and clean up student work spaces. “They’re just gross,” Noten said of the building’s laboratories. “There’s a video online in one of the chemistry websites … it shows the interior of the labs so you can kind of draw your own conclusions. But they’re just gnarly. I don’t think that they’re worthy of the level of the department.” As part of the capital budget request, each campus will prioritize construction it needs and the
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“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”