THE
SWINGING BRIDGE MESSIAH COLLEGE//THE PULSE
Vol. 95 // ED. 4 // October 31, 2013
Frey Building’s
Expansion
Messiah Couples: Do’s and Dont’s [page 8]
The expansion of Frey has begun and will continue in the area between the Frey academic building and Bittner Beach
The
Newest
“Royal” of Pop [page 11]
The Educated Athlete [page 10]
By Nicholas Tay FEATURES EDITOR
&
Danielle Chun STUDENT WRITER
With growth in student size and majors over the years, Messiah College has initiated several expansion projects. For example, the construction of Boyer Hall in 2003 gave the School of Education and Humanities a permanent home while the recent renovations to Murray Library have introduced new facilities for students, faculty and visitors. Thus, it would not be a surprise that the Visual Arts and Engineering departments are next in line to receive an expansion. Professor Christine Forsythe, chair of the Visual Arts department, notes that the extension to Frey has been long overdue. “Over the years, the Visual Arts department has expressed concern to the administration over the space usage of several of our studios. We explained to them that the lack of room could lead to a less safe environment for our students. When a studio is used all day by other classes, it creates a less productive atmosphere for our students because they can’t get back in the studio to work on their projects. Making art requires space and sometimes very specific kinds of spaces.” Messiah has mulled over plans for expanding the art department’s workspace for about a decade. Despite finally proceeding with an ex-
Photo by Danielle Gingrich tension rather than a brand new building, Forsythe doesn’t mind.
understanding is that we’ll be able to build upwards in the future, if needed.
“We have revised multiple plans for expansion, but mostly before the economic downturn. Once that happened, we (Messiah College) deemed it unwise to proceed with the project. Even last year, the department and the architects formulated a wonderful plan for a new standalone building, but the financial costs associated with its construction wasn’t something the college could proceed with. However, we are grateful that an expansion to Frey has been approved. It will literally be right behind my window, which unfortunately will have to make way for the construction. But that’s okay because what we’re getting is simply fantastic.”
Dr. Randy Fish, chair of the Engineering department, enlarges on the building concept Professor Forsythe described.
The extension to Frey will be shared with the engineering department, who will require additional space to accommodate their majors, given the recent addition of a civil engineering concentration. “We will be sharing the new expansion with the engineering department, which recently added a new concentration – civil engineering. Just like us, they’ve run out of space to provide for their new major. Thus, this expansion will fulfill the needs of the visual arts and engineering departments, which is really fantastic. The expansion will be a two-level building, with the engineering department taking the lower level. My
“The addition’s being constructed in such a way that there could eventually be four floors but what’s actually being built is the underground floor and the first floor. Each floor will be about 8,000 square feet. It will be built structurally so that if in the future we need to add another two floors, we could.” Fish notes that the expansion’s design will serve a functional purpose, a departure from aesthetic projects such as the High Center.
The extension to Frey has been long overdue. “It’s primitive from an architectural standpoint but it’s exciting from an engineering standpoint. This won’t be a beautiful facility. This will look even more primitive than the gym. If you walk into this new space, it’s one big
room. It’s kind of like walking into a Costco or BJ’s—one large room with an exposed ceiling and concrete floor and walls and three big garage doors on one wall so you can get equipment in and out. It’s not going to be nice classroom or lab space; it’s going to be a large, heated warehouse. Instead of a carpet, we’re going to have drains built into the floor so that spilt liquids can flow out along with no-skid floor paint so that it’ll be a safe place. But it has access to things like water and electricity and data connection for computers. It wouldn’t work at all for a classroom but it’s specifically for big projects.” These “big projects” are not an exaggeration. They include work on airplane and water purification systems; work that provides potential students with an idea of the Engineering department’s activities. “We’ll be able to wheel in the airplane and set it up. We have village-scale water purification systems that are ten feet high and eight feet across that can be assembled there. All those projects will be in there and able to be worked on instead of at some other warehouse or off site or tucked away in a corner. So when I’m recruiting new engineering students who love this kind of thing, I can walk in there with them and they can see the airplane there, the biodiesel treatment plant over there, the water purification systems over there, the hand-powered tricycle doing live cycle testing over there—it’ll be like a museum with student stations.” Fish also believes that a permanent space for these projects will //CONTINUE ON PAGE 2