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May 29, 2008, 12:46 PM ET
Shop Talk: Students Install Solar Panels, U. of Toronto Gets a Gift, and More
Students at Northland College installed a solar panel near the house of the college’s president, Karen I. Halbersleben. (Northland College image)
Student work: Northland College students enrolled in a course on photovoltaic installation recently put their training to the test on campus. They installed 12 pole-mounted solar panels in a yard near the home of Karen I. Halbersleben, the college’s president. Ms. Halbersleben paid for the project, with help from Wisconsin state energy grants. The panels, which will rotate on the pole to follow the sun, will generate about 3,300 kilowatt hours per year, offsetting 3.1 tons of carbon dioxide, according to the college’s calculations. The power will be used in the president’s house, and any surplus power will be sent out to the grid.
Payback time: The University of Toronto’s architecture school got a $14-million gift from John Daniels, an 81-year-old Toronto developer who was once a student in the program. The gift will be used to provide energy upgrades and more space to the architecture studios. “Mr. Daniels, who graduated in 1950, spent his first year in architecture at a makeshift campus in a munitions plant in Ajax, Ont., because the university was crowded with returning soldiers,” The Globe and Mail reports. “Still, he said, he was surprised by the space available to today’s students. ‘They are crowded together like cattle,’ he said. ‘The conditions are terrible.’” Mr. Daniels told the newspaper that the university had allowed him to continue his courses, even though his part-time wages couldn’t cover tuition.
There’s more: Tidewater Community College opened a new 70,000-square-foot science building designed by the firm Burt Hill. Southern Polytechnic University, in Marietta, Ga., will construct a new building to house various engineering programs on campus. The 123,000-square-foot project will include labs, classrooms, and seminar rooms. The university is also planning renovations to a 1960s building to house architecture studios. The state of Georgia gave the university $33-million for the projects.
Southern Polytechnic U. is planning a new, 123,000-square-foot science facility. (Southern Polytechnic U. image)
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