• St. Louis Community College Opens 31,000-Square-Foot Harrison Education Center (Kwame Building Group photo)

• Mount Wachusett Community College Awaits Wind Turbines—and Revenue Boost

• Ohio Chancellor Vetoes Kent State U. Plan to Charge Students a Fee for Facilities

• Report: Arizona State U. Agrees to Build 4-Year Campus in Payson

Bob Elbert, the Iowa State U. photographer, posted images of the mid-August floods on the university's Facebook page. (Iowa State U. photo)

Flooding that struck Iowa State University's campus in August may have caused as much as $50-million in damage, university officials have told the state Board of Regents. Athletic facilities were hardest hit—especially Hilton Coliseum, the university's basketball arena, which university officials say they hope to reopen in time for the beginning of the basketball season in November.

Warren Madden, the university's vice president for business and finance, told the regents that the flooding affected 17 university buildings, many of which remain closed, according to news reports. The flooding followed three days of rain that caused the Skunk River and Squaw Creek to overflow. Floodgates kept water out of many campus buildings, while university...

The U. of Iowa plans to demolish the Voxman Music Building/Hancher Auditorium complex. A new music building will be located downtown, while the auditorium will be rebuilt on higher ground near the current site. (Photographs from a Chronicle slideshow by Lawrence Biemiller)

University of Iowa officials now estimate that damage from the Iowa River's June 2008 flood will total $743-million by the time the university finishes demolishing damaged structures and building replacements elsewhere. But there's a silver lining: The flood has given the university the chance to rethink some poor decisions made decades ago.

The School of Music, which was relocated from the riverbank to temporary quarters in a down-on-its-luck downtown mall, liked the location so much that it will move to a new facility bridging a major downtown street. City and university officials hope that will make the...

• Montclair State U. Names New 303-Bed Dormitory for Frank Sinatra (Montclair State U. photo)

• New York U. Breaks Ground for Academic and Residential Building in Washington

• West Virginia U. Will Get EPA Help on Sustainability Measures

• U. of Louisville Plans $1.1-Billion Research Park

• Iowa State U. Dedicates Biorenewables Research Laboratory (Iowa State U. photo)

• U. of Wyoming Plans Additional Student Housing

• Florida Atlantic U. Will Build $70-Million Stadium

• Oakland U. Makes Improvements to Its Campus

• U. at Buffalo Breaks Ground for $46-Million Educational Opportunity Center on Downtown Campus (U. at Buffalo rendering)

• West Los Angeles College's Expansion Plans Prompt Local Officials to Sue

• SUNY College at Freedonia Readies New Rehearsal Spaces for Musicians

• Construction Begins on Instructional Building for Wake Technical Community College's Northern Wake Campus

• Yale U. Opens New Health Center as Campus Continues Expansion (Yale U. photo)

• Temple U. Breaks Ground for Architecture Building by H2L2

• Construction Advances on Gateway Community College's 380,000-Square-Foot Campus

• Princeton U. Chooses Developer for New Apartments for Graduate Students

The best-known building in all of American higher education, the University of Virginia's Rotunda, is in line for a renovation that will begin with replacing its iconic domed roof and repairing its Corinthian column capitals. The building, a half-sized Roman Pantheon in red brick, is the centerpiece of the campus Thomas Jefferson designed for the university, although he did not live to see the Rotunda completed, in 1826. 

The $22.9-million undertaking, described in a news release as "phase one" of the renovation project, was approved Tuesday by the university's Board of Visitors. It will be added to the list of capital projects that the university will submit next year for state approval. The project will include replacing the current metal roof, which is 35 years old, and repairing cracked column capitals.

The Rotunda was most recently renovated in the 1970s, when its interior was...

• Miramar College Tops Out New $34.7-Million Library (San Diego Community College District rendering)

• U. of Iowa Selects Pelli Clarke Pelli to Replace Auditorium Ruined in 2008 Flood

• Local Fire Department Sets 2 Mock Dorm Rooms Ablaze to Teach U. of Oregon Students a Lesson

• Case Western Reserve U. Asks for Studies for Possible Pedestrian Bridge

• Old Federal Building in Grand Rapids Will Be New Home of Ferris State U. Art School (Kendall College of Art and Design image)

• Freeze Delays 2 Projects at SUNY's Binghamton Campus

• Architects Will Study Bridge Accidents and Suicides at Cornell U.