Old tools common in chem. building

While giving a tour of the University’s chemistry labs, chemistry department Chair David Bear points to aging tables cluttered with equipment.

“This is grim,” he said. The 1950s building and its equipment, used for high tech research, show their age.

In November, New Mexico voters will vote on the $114.5 million General Obligation Bond C, $19 million of which would go toward construction at UNM, $16 million of which would go to renovate Clark Hall.

Bear said the department can’t continue to function properly unless the Clark Hall and Riebsomer Hall, which house the department, get major updates.

“What we’re trying to do is to develop a facility that will allow us to educate our students more effectively,” Bear said. “Over 90 percent of the $16 million is expected to go toward utility upgrades and renovation costs.”

Former UNM student Eleanor Roth, who graduated last spring, said the tables in the laboratory rooms are cramped, much of the equipment is outdated and drainage systems for the sinks are inadequate.

“It was difficult to do some of the labs there, it’s not like it was impossible, we got done what needed to be done, but I remember the building flooding when we were using water to cool an experiment, and equipment like spectrometers and hot pads were pretty outdated,” she said.

Bear said he hopes the buildings will be updated to the quality of the new Science and Math Learning Center, but that the equipment needed in Clark Hall, which hosts research and graduate level classes, would require a higher level of sophistication than the SMLC, which is used primarily for lower-level undergraduate courses.

Bear said renovations will provide advanced students with the facilities necessary to continue with careers in rapidly changing chemistry fields including renewable energy and synthesis of new materials.

Bear said the department hopes to gain more faculty from energy and biomedical research, one of the reasons for renovating the building. He said modernizing of the chemistry department will attract new faculty members, who will have input in the renovation process.

“The amount of money from the General Obligation Bond spent on new equipment will depend to some extent on the needs of the new faculty that are recruited to occupy each of the new laboratories,” Bear said.

He said the chemistry department houses 20 different sub-departments and is important to many areas of science.

Bear said if approved, the money for the renovations will come in during the summer of 2013, and, allowing a year for planning, the construction should break ground 2014.

“The challenge is going to be to carry out our teaching and research tasks during the renovation,” Bear said.