12
Wednesday, August 24, 1977
University Daily Kansan
KU's building boom brings more space
Construction on the new visual arts building and the law school building was completed in time for fall enrollment, though classes will not be held in the new School of Law until mid-October.
The Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art also is finished but won't be open to the public until next January. Two other construction projects are still under way and five others are in the planning stage as KU continues a building boom.
the planting stage as KU continues a building boom.
Construction has begun on the new computer services facility and the KU Drug Design Center. Both are expected to be completed in 1978. The five projects that are in different stages of planning are a satellite university near Allen Field House, additions to Malott Hall and Robinson Gymnasium, a solid waste steam generation plant and a demonstration center for the department of continuing education.
department of continuing education.
THE $5.8 MILLION visual arts building has been completed a year ahead of schedule,
according to Peter Thompson, associate dean of the School of Fine Arts, Good weather and
fast work by the contractors are the reasons, he said.
The department, formerly scattered in 13 facilities, will hold most classes this fall in one building for the first time. Those classes scheduled to be held in Fowler Hall, however, will remain in their present locations, Thompson said. Remodeling there won't be finished until later, this fall.
new building is between Murphy and Lindley Halls near the corner of 15th Street and Nassau Drive.
PROBLEMS CONTINUED to please the construction of the $2 million law building directly east of Jayhawk Power. Casson Construction Co., of Toppea was granted a second extension in 13 to complete the building when heavy June rains delayed construction of a necessary cleanup.
stores to receive y custum-
plans now have classes starting in old Green Hall this fall and moving to the new building in October. This is to allow time for equipment arriving Sept. 1, and the law library to be moved to its new quarters. The law library will be closed for two weeks while the move is being made.
THE HELEN FOREMAN Spencer Museum is scheduled to open in January 1978. All but $200,000 of the $4 million museum was donated to the University by Ms. Spencer.
The five-story museum will have about 90,000 square feet of floor space, roughly four times the size of the museum's old quarters in Spooner Hall. This will mean that permanent exhibitions will no longer have to be dismantled to show temporary collections. The museum is at the lower level. The building is across
exhibitions will no longer be to be dissuaded to show temperature and the Art Library will, formerly, sit on the town wall. The building is across [the street] from Mississippi Street. The next year, the computer
Two construction projects are expected to be completed within the next year. The computer services facility at the southwest corner of Illinois Street and Sunnyside Avenue is expted to be finished in 1978. The building will cost $4 million.
be finished in 1978. The building will cost $4 million.
THE SECOND PROJECT, which began June 1977, is the Drug Design Center on West Campus. The center, which will emphasize basic research in drugs dealing with central nervous system diseases, was created last year by a $1.25 million grant from the National Institute of Health.
FUNDING OF THE $2.5 million building will come from $2 million in revenue bonds issued by the university and from surplus accumulation bonds. In the 1976 spring student body elections, the majority of the students who voted said they favored increasing student activity fees by $6 to help build the new union.
activity room so you help build the new unit.
Plans for the satellite union include a study lounge, a bookstore about the size of the Oread bookstore and a cafeteria with seating for 300. The building would also house check-cashing facilities, a television area and a multi-purpose room for meetings and films.
uses a television area and a multi-level set that can accommodate completion dates in 1978. The satellite unit is to be built in the southwestern corner of an Alamodore Field House.
wHERE DO YOU COME FROM, AMERICA AT THE ROOM
NATIONAL GYMNAISUM AND MALTEN Hall additions are scheduled to be ready for the fall semester of 1970
The addition to Robinson will be on the west side of the gymnasium at the corner of Naismith Drive and Sunnyside Avenue. Its purpose is to relieve the crowded conditions in the existing facility because of the increased interest in physical education classes and women's sports.
The addition to Malott Hall, on the south side of the building, will expand the facilities of the School of Pharmacy and the Science Library. It will also provide better facilities for the housing and care of animals used for teaching and research.
The addition to Robinson Gym
The Renaissance astronomers used the star depicted 8.7 million for the addition to Robinson Gyrmium and $11.5 million for the addition to Malotl Hall. They would provide K1 a spectral
THE PROPOSED SOLID waste steam generator plant would provide KU a possible distribution facility of facilities planned, said. The 1977 legislature allowed $100,000 to the University to begin planning for power needs. Lawton said the project is now ready for more extensive planning.
Carson County will construct a painting
"Finding Home," about $11 million. The plant, expected to
be finished in the summer of 1980, will be on West Campus.
The Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art (bottom), the Computer Services facility (top left) and the new law school building (top right).
Drug Design lab planned
Construction is under way on a new laboratory facility to house the University of Kansas Center for Drug Design, a research agency created last year by a $1.25 million grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH).
The center is the first program of basic study for the development of new drugs sponsored by NIH, Mathias Mertes, professor of medicinal chemistry and director of the drug design center program, said recently.
March 1, 1978, to the University established in the spring of 1978 when THE University was awarded a five-year grant NIH. Mertes said KU was selected because of the concentration of faculty in the area of drug research at the University.
Funds for the building, which is expected to cost $500,000, are being provided by the KU Endowment Association. The association will lease the building, scheduled to be completed on the West Campus by March 1, 1978, to the University.
research at the University.
The NIH grant was also an outgrowth of another grant, the Health Sciences Award, received by the University in 1967 to establish new faculty positions, Mertes said.
KU has been involved in preliminary drug research for many years, Mertes said. It was necessary to show the federal government that KU had a viable program before the NIH grant could be awarded. He hoped that for the preliminary research had come from the University of Kansas.
"ITS INVESTMENT IS beginning to pay off," Mertes said.
The NIH grant provides for approximately $250,000 a year for research and to hire about 30 graduate and undergraduate students who serve as experimental research assistants.
The center really has two products, Mertes said-the basic information gained from the research and the training of students in real problems.
"We're here to train and do research," he said. "A by-product of this research is also a student who can contribute to the economy."
THE DEPARTMENTS involved in the research are those of biochemistry, chemistry, human development and family life, medical chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacy and campus and the department of pharmacology at the Med Center.
Mertes said the laboratory would afford a concentrated attack on a question that is asked in different ways.
that is ower in the research will be on diseases of the central nervous system such as epilepsy, Mertes said. The results of the research will be published in scientific journals.
"THIS IS PUBLIC information," he said, "and is not tied to any drug company."
After a drug has been discovered, he said, it takes 11 to 14 years of development before the treatment can be used on patients.
drug company. The chances of discovering a new drug are one in a thousand, Mertes said, but any information that is developed can be used by other investigators in their work.