Engineering departments invest $23 million to improve instructional facilities

With support from campus and the College of Engineering, six facility projects, totaling $23 million, will provide innovative upgrades to instruction that will impact an estimated 6,000 students across the University of Illinois engineering campus.

The funding is part of the Campus Facilities Matching Program, which will provide funds to departments with major renovation ideas that could benefit a large number of students.  In addition to the four projects with campus backing, the College added support to two other renovations from its departments. The $23 million for these six projects include $6.6 million coming from campus, $4.5 million from the College and $11.3 million from the departments.

In determining which proposals to fund, the College and campus weighed several factors, including the impact they could have on undergraduate instruction, according to Bruce Vojak, Associate Dean for Administration.

A look at the projects:

• The Departments of Aerospace Engineering and Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering will benefit from turning a high bay into three floors of instructional lab space and one floor of research at Talbot Laboratory. The $3.2 million project will benefit 400 students.

• The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will expand the Hydrosystems Lab, phase one of the larger Civil and Environmental Engineering Infrastructure Modernization Plan, which will include developing the resources and support for the renovation and expansion of Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory as well, over the next three to five years. The newly created space will include new laboratories to support modern instructional methods that focus on hands-on learning, as well as classrooms and office space. The project costs just over $12 million and will benefit 2,200 students. MORE ON THE PROJECT

• The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering will undergo a remodel of disciplinary instructional labs in the first-floor of the Mechanical Engineering Lab and will reclaim the courtyard in the Mechanical Engineering Building. The $4 million project will benefit 1,500 students.

• The Department of Physics will remodel upper level instructional labs in the Engineering Sciences (ESB) Building and a portion of the Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) space on the first floor in ESB. The $3 million project will benefit 150 students.

• The Coordinated Science Laboratory will create two collaboration spaces in CSL where students and other researchers can meet spontaneously in small groups and brainstorm. The $110,000 project will benefit 325 students.

• The Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering will update the first floor of the Transportation Building. The $547,000 project will benefit 1,500 students.

The College of Engineering at Illinois is among the world’s most prestigious and largest engineering institutions, with undergraduate and graduate programs ranked in the Top Five nationally and internationally. These are just a half dozen of the many upgrades that help keep Illinois globally competitive. This fall, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is opening a brand new environmentally friendly and state-of-the-art building on the northwest corner of campus. Its previous home, Everitt Lab, will undergo massive renovation to house the Department of Bioengineering.