MSU looks to the future with expansion

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In the coming months, MSU will navigate difficult waters as it makes decisions regarding the fate of dozens of academic programs and specializations. For Christoph Benning, however, a much brighter future is on the horizon.

Benning, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is one of many instructors and researchers who stands to gain from the MSU Board of Trustees’ Dec. 4 approval of a $43.2 million expansion to the Plant and Soil Sciences Building. The project will include a new auditorium and two floors of laboratory space, as well as rooms for growing plant specimens.

“We envision this space is going to be very modern, very beautiful, basically representing plant biology on campus,” Benning said. “Plant biology is very important to MSU.”

Construction on the multimillion-dollar facility is scheduled to begin in mid-May and wrap up by March 2012. The expansion was approved less than two months after Fred Poston, MSU vice president for finance and operations, announced a scaling back of campus construction and repair projects in light of budget uncertainties.

But what makes this project different, MSU officials said, is that it will represent MSU’s investment in the future and a place where multiple academic disciplines will intersect and collaborate.

Recession investments

With the attached price tag, MSU officials said it stands to reason people might wonder why large amounts of money are being spent in light of potential academic cuts, increasing tuition and shrinking budgets.

“If you don’t invest in your future, you don’t have any future,” said David DeWitt, associate dean of budget, planning and research for the College of Natural Science.

“What we’re doing is not just cutting back things, we’re trying to reorganize the university and invest in things we’re strong in.”

The expansion, which will connect the Plant and Soil Sciences Building with the Plant Biology Laboratories, will be paid for using tax-free bonds and using money from MSU’s general fund.

Poston said the university typically pays off the bonds during a 20-year period.

He said in spite of MSU’s future budget uncertainties, the university’s reputation in plant-related sciences, combined with a new facility that potentially might attract more grant money and more faculty, justifies the expansion’s cost.

“Many of the federal grants that we receive are dependent on having appropriate research facilities,” Poston said in an e-mail. “We believe that it is imperative that we upgrade facilities to maintain our scientific reputation.”

Going for grants

DeWitt said one grant in particular practically justifies the expansion itself.

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, or GLBRC, which came to MSU in 2008, will bring about $50 million during a period of five years to the university and might be moved, at least partially, into the new facility. Currently, the GLBRC research is conducted at various campus locations.

J. Ian Gray, MSU vice president for research and graduate studies, said the expansion’s $43.2 million price tag is a drop in the bucket when it relates to potential grant money and attracting more renowned faculty to the university.

“It is a major commitment in a time of tight budgets, but … it’s very important for us to develop and maintain those areas that will be the flag-bearers of research in the future,” Gray said.

Breaking ground

The four-story expansion will contain a total of 80,000 square feet, about half of which will contain new laboratories, teaching space and a multipurpose area where people can congregate when taking a break from work, DeWitt said.

Additionally, the auditorium currently located in the Plant and Soil Sciences Building will be demolished and replaced with an updated one, complete with new teaching technologies.

The auditorium and multipurpose area will take up much of the first floor, DeWitt said.

The second and third floors primarily will be devoted to laboratory space, while the fourth floor will remain empty because the building’s budget allowed for its creation, but not to fill it.

DeWitt said the fourth floor could be used for expanded laboratory space in the future.

Ken Keegstra, GLBRC’s director and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, said the building’s design will allow for a level of interdisciplinary collaboration that traditional laboratories cannot.

“The new building’s going to be organized differently to allow the interactions between people who take different approaches to studying the same problems,” he said.

The situation has its pros and cons, Benning said, but ultimately it will be more advantageous to the university.

“I understand that students are suffering because tuition goes up and classes get bigger and MSU is struggling,” he said.

“All this stuff hangs together. But we can’t stop the future.”

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