Photo gallery Chemical reaction: ‘a huge upgrade’
The recently opened addition to the Chemistry Building on University Avenue is a nine-story tower housing lecture halls, an information commons, offices, teaching laboratories, and group write-up spaces for undergraduate teaching labs.
The exterior of the new instructional tower of the Chemistry Building, as seen from the Botany Garden across the street.
Students flow out of lecture hall S429 and walk up the red and white marble terrazzo stairs.
Linda Zelewiski, senior lecturer in chemistry, teaches students about spontaneous and nonspontaneous reactions in General Chemistry II.
Sophomore Shrey Ramesh operates a rotary evaporator, which removes solvents from reaction mixtures by using a vacuum to reduce their boiling point, in the Witting Lab for organic chemistry. “Going from online labs last semester to this in-person lab was a huge upgrade,” Ramesh says.
Students in Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry follow along with assistant faculty associate Amanda Buchberger Jones' lecture on one of eight screens encircling Learning Studio 1435. The studio features movable tables with microphones and projection cords that allow students to share their work with the class.
Two students in the second semester of general chemistry meet with their teaching assistant in a 7th floor write-up room. Every lab has a connected room to work up data and talk to labmates without wearing protective equipment. The walls and windows are all writing surfaces.
Students in Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry work on an independent lab in teams of four where they design their own projects.
Students lean over their computers in the Undergraduate Study Lounge in the sub-basement of the new Chemistry Building instructional tower. The artwork hanging above — “Light Source” by artist Bev Precious — is an aluminum and dichroic glass sculpture that hung in the previous chemistry building foyer.
One group of students takes notes in a classroom while another participates in a lab in the background in classroom 8845.
Students in a lab for the second semester of General Chemistry watch carefully for the liquid in a beaker to turn from blue to yellow as they use titration to identify an unknown base.