Starting at the end of the academic year, Seaver North will undergo renovation, forcing chemistry classes to seek alternate lab and lecture spaces while the $13 million project completely guts the 40 year-old building.

"The big problem is the building’s infrastructure," said Chemistry Department Chair Dr. Cynthia R. Dias Selassie. "It’s also a safety and reliability issue."

Decades of experimental chemistry have placed a significant strain on the building’s systems. The plumbing has been especially hard-hit, but the vacuum, mechanical, and electrical systems are all in need of replacement. Systems such as the fume hoods, which allow students to safely conduct gas-producing experiments, are in need of replacement.

The problems with the existing space go beyond the age of the equipment. "Teaching has changed a lot in the last 20 years, especially in terms of technology, and this is a very instrumentation-intensive science," Selassie explained. "The new building will be much more user-friendly."

The new spaces will include classrooms with computer projection capabilities, two computing centers (one with powerful workstations for molecular modeling), and labs that will fit an entire general chemistry section, which is presently divided into two rooms.

The renovation will also make more space available for lab work. Currently, Seaver North has a high-pressure lab designed for the types of experiments that were frequently conducted decades ago. However, as the science has evolved, the lab has become less and less useful; currently, it sits unused. After the renovation, it will be the home of a computer center.

The renovation will pose some significant challenges. First, because the project will completely gut the building, Seaver North’s labs, classrooms and auditorium will be unavailable. Lectures will be moved to other sites on campus, and general chemistry labs will be performed across the street in Millikan.

Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry students will have to be bussed off-campus to perform their labs, possibly at an old Johnson and Johnson facility now owned by the Keck Graduate Institute.

The moving process itself will be complicated, as the department owns many pieces of expensive and delicate precision equipment, such as its $300,000 MR spectrometer.

Despite the difficulties, the renovation will ultimately be a huge boon to the department. "We’ll be able to do things we’ve been dreaming of," Carnegie Professor of Chemistry Wayne E. Steinmetz said. "It will be a hassle, but it’s a small price to pay. For example, we’ll have a biochemistry lab that was actually designed as a biochemistry lab." The current biochemistry lab is a converted organic synthesis lab.

Steinmetz was also enthusiastic about the new faculty research space that will result from the renovation. "At some point, we might add an eighth member to the department. It’s nice to know that we’ll have a lab for them," Steinmetz said. Other upgrades to the science buildings are in store. Millikan will see improvements as well, and a totally new building will be constructed at the present location of Thille to connect Seaver North with Seaver East. The project is due to be complete in the summer of 2001, with classes occupying the new facilities for that fall semester.