Space — there is never enough. If you have a two-car garage, you want a third. If you have a 15-foot fishing boat, you realize a 19-footer would be much better. And if you offer a learn-by-doing, collaborative learning environment to a growing number of students, hire a few dozen additional faculty, and expand the college’s research portfolio, then you need more teaching lab, research and office space.
Fortunately, we gained additional space in each of the last three years and we will gain more for 2018-19. In the last 15 months, we added significant space in Heavilon Hall, including two teaching labs for the Department of Computer and Information Technology, a capstone project lab for the School of Engineering Technology and nine research labs. In a few months, we will acquire more space in Heavilon and begin constructing a teaching lab for the Department of Computer Graphics Technology that will be ready for use in January 2019.
Our students now have access to the Bechtel Innovation Design Center. Please go visit and encourage students to use it!
At the airport, we are moving forward with two initiatives to gain more space: building an addition to a hangar to provide more space for our flight students and instructors and installing a mezzanine within a hangar to provide additional power plant lab space for aeronautical engineering technology.
We are acquiring space in the Potter Engineering Center for use starting in the fall, and we received another extension (for the 2018-19 academic year) for most of the research space we have been using in Wang Hall for the last three years.
A feasibility study is being conducted to build-out and lease space at the new Indiana Manufacturing Institute facility in the Purdue Research Park to serve as a state-of-the-art “smart factory” teaching lab, adding to the college’s other teaching and research labs currently there.
Finally, the Polytechnic and the College of Engineering have partnered and are working with the University to potentially build a new shared facility located in the footprint of the Michael Golden Labs (MGL) and Nuclear Engineering buildings.
A constant need for new and renovated facilities is a good problem to have, reflective of a vibrant, growing college. We are working continually to provide faculty and students with the space needed to be successful. The recent additions and those coming this year are great steps, and the partnership with the College of Engineering represents a potentially game-changing leap.
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