As first announced in an October email by Dean Orr, the Johnson Science Center renovation and expansion has been delayed until May of 2016, at which point the College will seek the approval of the Board of Trustees to begin construction.
“There’s a certain level of gifts that we have to have in hand before we can actually begin the groundbreaking. The decision was made to delay it by six months to give us more time to raise a little bit more money so that we hit the targets we need to begin the project,” said Michael Orr, Dean of Faculty.
Due to delays to the renovation and expansion project, students in the Lake Forest College community will have a few extra months to say their goodbyes to the Johnson Science Center as they know it. The renovation delays will give the College the opportunity to come closer to reaching its fundraising goals for the project.
According to Krebs Provost and Dean Orr, the expansion and renovation of the Johnson Science Center is a project that the College has long anticipated. “We currently have a majority of science facilities in a 1960s-era building that is way out of date, which tremendously compromises our ability to teach 21st-century science.”
As discussed in an online post on the College’s website, the new Johnson Science Center will allow for greater teaching capacity and student- teacher research collaboration. As first announced in an October email by Dean Orr, the Johnson Science Center renovation and expansion has been delayed until May of 2016, at which point the College will seek the approval of the Board of Trustees to begin construction.
“There’s a certain level of gifts that we have to have in hand before we can actually begin the ground- breaking. The decision was made to delay it by six months to give us more time to raise a little bit more money so that we hit the targets we need to begin the project,” said Michael Orr, Dean of Faculty.
Due to delays to the renovation and expansion project, students in the Lake Forest College community will have a few extra months to say their goodbyes to the Johnson Science Center as they know it. The renovation delays will give the College the opportunity to come closer to reaching its fundraising goals for the project.
According to Krebs Provost and Dean Orr, the expansion and renovation of the Johnson Science Center is a project that the College has long anticipated. “We currently have a majority of science facilities in a 1960s-era building that is way out of date, which tremendously compromises our ability to teach 21st-century science.”
As discussed in an online post on the College’s website, the new Johnson Science Center will allow for greater teaching capacity and student-teacher research collaboration. Generally for renovation or expansion projects of this nature, funds can be borrowed by the College to begin the construction process, as in the case of the Moore Residence Hall construction.
However, given the College’s financial standing and its ability to raise money for the project, the Johnson Center renovations and expansion will be funded almost entirely through gift commitments. “We could have pursued additional debt,” said Dean Orr, “but we felt that it was imprudent to do so and in the best interest of the College not to take on additional debt for this project.”
Despite delays to the physical construction of the new science center, the planning and designing of the project continues. “There’s a lot of intense work going on right now with the architects and the designers and the contractor, developing the plan and the phasing and the sequencing of the project,” said Dean Orr. “There was a whole set of work that was always going to be happening in tandem with the construction and that’s continuing [now].”
With slightly revised completion dates for the project, students can enjoy the quiet before construction begins. With approval from the Board of Trustees pushed to May of 2016, the completion of the expansion can be expected in the winter of 2017 and the renovation to be finished by approximately August 2017.
