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Academic Centers for Athletes Draw Donors
More than a dozen university athletics programs have added lavish new facilities in recent years, and academic-services budgets are soaring, a Chronicle survey finds. (Photograph courtesy of Texas A&M U.)
College Employees Value Campus Environment, Survey Finds
When a Chronicle survey asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list.
Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Other News
After Hurricane Gustav, Campuses Clean Up
Cleanup crews scoured Gulf Coast campuses, removing downed limbs and repairing broken windows, while students and staff members forced out by Hurricane Gustav waited for word that they could return.
Lessons From Katrina Improve Colleges' Evacuations for Hurricane Gustav
College officials across the Gulf Coast were cautiously relieved when initial reports suggested the damage wasn't severe.
College of Southern Idaho Cafeteria Goes 'Tray-Less'
Students are also wasting less food because they no longer have the option of overloading their cafeteria trays, says the college's food-services director.
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
Preservation Fight Stalls Recreation Complex at U. of Massachusetts at Amherst
Work on a new recreation center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has ground to a halt because the university failed to file required paperwork before beginning demolition in a complex of university barns that preservation backers say are historic.
According to WSHM-TV, in Springfield, Mass., the university began tearing down a 1909 cow barn on the site without alerting either state environmental authorities or the state historical commission. The demolition was stopped in October, after an organization called Preserve UMass succeeded in getting the campus included on a 2007 list of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Resources in Massachusetts.
Joseph S. Larson, an emeritus professor in the university’s College of Natural Resources and the Environment who is Preserve UMass’s spokesman, says the cow barn is now too far gone to save. But the organization wants to make sure the university seeks independent assessments of other buildings in the complex, including an 1894 horse barn, which Preserve UMass says is badly deteriorated, and an 1869 farm manager’s house, according to The Republican, a Springfield newspaper.
University officials and state authorities are continuing to discuss how to proceed. Preserve UMass is pushing the university to move the 1894 barn and the farm manager’s house to another university agricultural facility. The organization also wants the university to be required to comply with the state’s environmental and preservation rules in the future.
Lawrence Biemiller | Friday December 14, 2007 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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Sounds like they messed up, and now the project will suffer. There is sometimes great value in old buildings – at Washington State, a 1920’s cow barn becme a wonderful showplace as an Alumni center.
— Al Dec 14, 04:11 PM #
guess the manure wasn’t just in the cow barn; and how the PC crowd at UMA rails against and vilifies the philistines who endanger the snail toad with water run off pipes and business that level all of those fine old brick buildings in the area while abuse goes on right under their noses; gee, sounds like a happy Valley PC family!!
— jc Dec 14, 08:36 PM #
Instead of “historical commissions”, why don’t we just call them “hysterical commissions”?
The 1909 barn is less than a hundred years old!
— Common Sense Dec 17, 07:48 AM #
The historic value of a structure in Massachusetts is governed by specific state criteria. On the UMass Amherst campus there are over 2 dozen on the state list dating from 1728 to 1935. An additional four state listed structures on the campus have been demolished without complying with state law and one burned due to inappropriate use. Another four state listed structures on private land in the Town of Amherst were destroyed, again without complying with state law, as a condition imposed by the University though a buy/sell agreement.
Preserve UMass believes that the Amherst campus and the UMass System Building Authority ought to comply with state statutes.
— Joseph S. Larson Dec 17, 03:56 PM #