Chem Department Hopes to Expand Mallinckrodt Laboratory in Spring

The Chemistry Department hopes to break ground for a four story addition to Mallinckrodt this spring, Ronald 'E. Vanelli '41, director of the chemical laboratories announced yesterday.

Vanelli said that the details were still "tenuous and tentative," but the plans for the building have been drawn and the site has been chosen. The addition will be to the south side of Mallinckrodt, behind New Lecture Hall.

The new building is one point of the expansion program Dean Bundy outlined last week when he announced the probable rise in tuition. The cost of the building is not yet certain, and Vanelli could not discuss plans for raising funds.

The new building will house laboratories for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are now crowded mostly in Converse Memorial Laboratory. Biochemistry students, now working in the basement of Converse, will be the first to move into the addition when it is built, Vanelli said.

Undergraduate laboratory space is not the problem at present because there is still space in Byerly Hall, he said. But graduate courses could not be held in Byerly. Vanelli pointed out, because costly reconstruction would be necessary to convert the present labs. In addition, Byerly is too far away from the rest of the labs to allow the communication that is essential for research.

Mallinckrodt Inadequate

Mallinckrodt, built over 25 years ago, was then adequate to house the relatively small number of researchers, but recently the University "has had spectacular success in attracting a very large number of the students with the best government scholarships," E. Bright Wilson, chairman of the department, pointed out. There are now about 135 graduate students and about 50 post-doctoral fellows for whom space must be provided.

The new building would complete the quadrangle of chemistry buildings, three of whose sides are Converse and the two wings of Mallinckrodt. In floor space, the new building would be equal in size to Converse.

Part of the land on which the building will be constructed is now occupied by a private home, part of which will have to be torn down.

In discussing the new building, Professor Wilson said that there were more than 1400 students enrolled in chemistry courses, to set an all time high, and making the need for more lab space essential. The possibility of expansion of the University also increases the need, he added.