Ventilation in labs at UW-Madison is deficient, especially in organic chemistry labs, where experiments are performed under fume hoods to protect students from harmful chemical fumes. Credit: Joe Koshollek

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Madison - Kelly Underwood is a typical University of Wisconsin-Madison junior, scrambling to get into a class she desperately needs at the start of a new school year.

But finding a seat in a chemistry class here, and at UW-La Crosse and UW-Stevens Point, is an especially high-stakes race.

Buildings with science labs constructed 40 to 50 years ago weren't designed to keep up with expanding enrollments and evolving science, UW officials say. That's especially true as the number of students pursuing science-related fields grows exponentially to match workforce opportunities, and science encompasses emerging fields such as biotechnology and nanotechnology.

To meet the challenges, UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse and UW-Stevens Point are proposing a combination of new buildings and renovations costing a total of $260.5 million - $167.5 million of that in the 2013-'15 biennium. The UW Board of Regents last month voted to move the three science building projects forward, but the state Building Commission, Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature also would need to approve the projects before construction could begin.

"We call chemistry the central science," said Matt Sanders, executive director of the UW-Madison chemistry department.

That's because 40% of all entering UW-Madison freshmen take a chemistry course their first semester on campus. In addition, virtually all students majoring in science, engineering and health fields require chemistry courses as prerequisites to courses in their major.

Accommodating large general chemistry (freshman) and organic chemistry (sophomore) enrollments is crucial for undergrads to complete their degrees on time, Sanders said.

This semester, some 6,000 UW-Madison undergrads are enrolled in chemistry classes.

"We can always offer more lecture courses by adding another section, but we can't do that with lab sections because we only have so many rooms equipped as labs, and so many hours in a day," said Robert McMahon, a chemistry professor and associate chair of the College of Letters and Sciences.

A few years ago, one chemistry lab was reduced from four hours to three hours to squeeze more lab classes into the day.

"It was not sustainable," McMahon recalled. "It stressed our staffing and infrastructure."

Freshman Chemistry 103 should have one lab session every week. But because there aren't enough labs to accommodate the high enrollment, a lab is offered only every other week, and computer experiments fill in the nonlab weeks. For nonscience majors, this course may be the only course they take to learn hands-on lab skills.

Safety and hygiene

Accommodating more students, and higher-level sciences, isn't just a matter of replacing outdated equipment or retrofitting classrooms.

Supporting infrastructures also are outdated - from the wiring and plumbing, to energy-efficiency features to recycle heat and a complex air-handling system that sucks chemical fumes from labs and circulates fresh air throughout the three science wings.

"What we need is a heart and lung transplant," McMahon said.

Chemical safety and hygiene standards also have changed dramatically in the 40 years since the undergrad chemistry labs were built. Ventilation in labs at UW-Madison is deficient, especially in organic chemistry labs, where experiments are performed under fume hoods to protect students from harmful chemical fumes.

A new tower for labs must be built because floor-to-floor measurements in the existing chemistry complex are too low for modern fume hoods to be installed for more students to do hands-on experiments, said chemistry professor Fleming Crim.

With undergraduate enrollment in chemistry courses at UW-Madison up about 50% in the last 20 years, some students who need chemistry classes are taking longer to graduate, or at least face a mad scramble to meet requirements for their majors, McMahon said.

"Getting into a lab may take one to three semesters longer than it should," he said. "We have seniors in their final semester, finally getting into a lab they should have been in their sophomore year."

Some students have been forced to take chemistry classes at another UW campus to meet their science requirement and finish a degree on time, McMahon said.

But students are creative, he said.

Several years ago, when the bottleneck for organic chemistry classes became especially severe, students developed a black market of sorts. An underclassman who needed the class would ask a senior with no intention of attending the class to enroll.

"In the dead of night, the senior would go online, drop the class, call the underclassman, and the underclassman would go online to grab the open seat before anyone else realized it was available," McMahon said.

Underwood, the UW-Madison junior, signed on to her laptop at her apartment Friday morning, found three seats left in an introductory chemistry lab and discussion class that had already started earlier in the week, and biked to campus to get permission to switch from a different class to this one.

By dropping her original Chemistry 103 class, she created an opening for another student to grab a seat in one of the highest-enrollment courses on campus.

Only one problem: "The lab section connected to the discussion I want is at 7:45 a.m.," said Underwood, a divorced parent of two young children who is switching her major from food science to nursing.

UW-Madison chemistry labs run back-to-back from 7:45 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Students do their lab notes in hallways because there are no classroom areas near the labs. They either sit in rows of chairs lining hallways or sprawl on the floor outside the labs to do calculations, record information and discuss experiment data.

A place to work

If the $103.5 million chemistry building addition and renovation moves forward, the UW-Madison chemistry department will have rooms separate from the chemical hazards of labs for students to write up lab notes, do computing and have group discussions - considered the standard setup for modern chemistry labs, said Crim, the chemistry professor.

UW-La Crosse is seeking a new $82 million science labs building.

At that campus, half of all labs are in use 24 hours or more a week, and one biology lab has reached 44 hours of scheduled use per week, according to information provided to the UW regents. Three chemistry and microbiology labs exceed 100% occupancy rates, with more students enrolled than there are student stations.

Evening lab sections have been added at that campus, as well.

The UW-La Crosse College of Science and Health serves 42% of total student credit hours at the university. The science building, Cowley Hall, was built in 1963 and is overcrowded and in serious disrepair, according to officials.

UW-La Crosse has an institutional focus in allied health - careers that provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic and direct patient care and support services critical to other health professionals they work with and patients they serve.

Additional research space is needed to help students prepare for the workplace. Cowley Hall, like the chemistry complex at UW-Madison, also has outdated mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, according to UW officials. Windows leak and ice builds up inside windows during winter months

UW-Stevens Point is seeking a new $75 million science laboratory building to address safety concerns and offer contemporary research and lab space.

The Wisconsin Institute for Sustainable Technology at UW-Stevens Point is one driver of this proposed lab building.

The institute focuses on providing statewide research, development consultancy and technology transfer capability for the paper, packaging, forestry, agriculture, food processing and biofuels industries.

Also, to increase the campus' four-year graduation rate from 58.9% to 80% - the current goal - the space crunch that limits student access to required laboratory and other science classes must be addressed, campus officials told the regents.

Like the other science buildings, floor-to-ceiling heights are too low for new air handling equipment to be added, and mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems for laboratories and classrooms are considered outdated.

Proposed

building

projects

UW-Madison:

$103.5 million

UW-La Crosse:

$82 million.

UW-Stevens Point: $75 million.