A longtime friend of Saint Joseph's College, in Rensselaer, Ind., has left the institution 7,634 acres of farmland on condition that the college not sell the land, which is worth more than $40-million, and protect it from development with a conservation easement. The donor, Juanita K. Waugh, hoped her bequest would help maintain the rural character of White County, where the farms are located.

According to a college news release, the land is notable for having 19 operating windmills that are part of the Meadow Lake Wind Farm, which plans to add 13 more. The college says it will be the private landowner "with the most windmills east of the Mississippi River."

The college will retain a manager to oversee the land and does not expect to seek tax-exempt status for it.

• Graduate Student Helps Denton, Tex., Campus Theater Win Landmark Status (Denton Public Library photo)

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• U. of Michigan Golf Team Seeks $2.5-Million Practice Facility

• Campus of Shuttered Mary Holmes College Is Sold

• David Cronrath Is Chosen as Architecture Dean at U. of Maryland at College Park

University of California at Riverside, Riverside, Calif.

Building Type: Science

Construction Type: New

Cost: $37-million

Square Footage: 106,000

Architect: Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott; RBB Architecture

Contractor: ProWest PCM Inc.

Opened: 2009

Sited prominently in the university's science precinct, this building for the Institute of Integrative Genome Biology offers a collaborative research and education environment for more than 200 faculty members, researchers, and graduate and post-doctoral students. It houses a bioinformatics suite, research labs, and instrumentation facilities, including insectaries and growth chambers. A 100-seat auditorium accommodates lectures, events, and conferences.

(Photos: RBB Architecture)

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Duke University, Durham, N.C.

Building Type: Academic

Construction Type: Renovation

Cost: $19.4-million

Square Footage: 115,000

Architect: Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott

Contractor: BE&K Building Group

Opened: 2008

The new Star Commons and renovated Goodson Library open up the inward-facing law school to the rest of the campus while reestablishing the library and its reading room as a place of scholarship. The commons creates a landmark element that emphasizes the building’s main entrance. Wrapped on two sides with glass, the LEED-certified commons is designed to be a social hub, with mezzanine and classroom levels overlooking the space. Meanwhile, light now infuses the renovated library, with its technology-supported learning spaces, meeting and conference rooms, and individual and group-study areas.

(Photo: Anton Grassl/Esto)

Columbia University Medical Center, New York, N.Y.

Building Type: Medical

Construction Type: Renovation

Cost: $15-million

Square Footage: 30,000

Architect: Mitchell/Giurgola Architects

Contractor: Structure Tone

Opened: 2009

This new classroom and study facility, located in space formerly occupied by library stacks, is shared by several units of the medical center—the School of Nursing, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, and the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, and its opening coincides with the replacement of lecture-and-microscope-based teaching approach with a team-based, computer-aided curricular model. The project involved reorganizing the library and its collection, constructing high density shelving, and building a new stairway to connect the circulation desk, reading room, and stacks, which are located on separate floors. The ...

• U. of Montana Opens $8.6-Million Center for Native American Studies and Services (U. of Montana photos)

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• U. of South Carolina Will Pay 2 Developers $890,000 to Settle Research-Campus Dispute

• Colorado State U. Buys Sorority House for Business-College Expansion

An entrance atrium is the focal point of the 30,000-square-foot Native American Center.

Glenn & Glenn Architects Engineers were the design architects for the Native American Center, which was dedicated Thursday. A&E Architects were the architects of record.

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The venerable Williams Club of New York will close its doors at the end of this month, and Williams College will put the club's twin brownstones, at 39th and Madison, up for sale. The college says the property was recently assessed at $21-million.

The club, founded in 1913, moved to its current location, at 24 East 39th Street, in 1924. It has 28 guest rooms as well as dining and function facilities. Although it was run by its own Board of Governors, the college had provided financial help to the club for decades. The college also held the mortgage, which it recently retired in return for taking ownership of the building.

James Kolesar, a spokesman for the college, said that the club's closing was "a sad moment for some," but that running what was essentially a small hotel was "not really feasible anymore." Younger alumni, he added, tend to socialize in other ways than at a club with...

Today's Buildings & Grounds guest blogger, Dave Newport, is director of the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. (Photo by Casey A. Cass)

Measuring a college's Scope 3 carbon emissions is an imprecise science, at best. But help is on the way—or is it?

Scope 3 emissions are those an institution neither owns nor directly controls, like emissions from jet travel, commuting, waste disposal, and purchasing. Currently, many colleges try to measure those emissions with surveys, interpolations, mileage/cost conversions, models, or other methods sometimes brewed up by the administrators doing the work. Unlike Scope 1 or 2 carbon emissions (such as those from purchased and/or produced power), you can’t just read a meter and calculate how much carbon was released.

However, there is no doubt that Scope 3 emissions are very important contributors to overall carbon...

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• Stanford U. President Takes Academic Council on a Walking Tour of Construction Projects

Princeton's new sustainable-energy-research complex will have three levels, one of them below grade. (Princeton U. images)

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects has created a design for Princeton University's two-year-old Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment that would link three new buildings to existing structures and create a multilevel garden around them. The new buildings will total 127,000 square feet, and the project will bring renovations to some existing facilities as well.

A news release from the university did not give a price for the project, located in the Prospect Avenue area of the campus. The Andlinger Center, devoted to sustainability energy production and use, was created with a $100-million donation from Gerhard Andlinger, a businessman who graduated from the university in 1952. Construction is expected to begin in 2012 and finish up in 2015.

The three-...