The budget for the recent renovations in DRL is $1.7 million, according to Mike Dausch, Facilities and Real Estate Services executive director of design and construction.
Credit: Annie LuoA semester after a series of leakages prompted students to protest the facility conditions in David Rittenhouse Laboratory, a dozen classrooms in the building have been renovated. The move is part of a $1.7 million effort to renovate the building, said Mike Dausch, Facilities and Real Estate Services' executive director of design and construction.
Twelve classrooms in the central wing of DRL underwent a complete renovation this summer, Vice Dean for Finance and Administration Matthew Lane said. The renovations include replacing the floor, wall paint, desks, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Immediate renovations also include updating several bathrooms throughout the building.
The summer renovations come after a series of major ceiling leakages in spring 2019 that caused damage and flooding to more than a dozen rooms. The leakages also forced 10 graduate students to relocate out of their offices.
After more than 150 students and faculty in DRL signed a petition calling on Penn to address the recurring flooding and poor working conditions, FRES removed abandoned chilled water piping that caused the floods. The outcry also prompted plans for a slate of DRL renovations.
The frozen pipes that were causing flooding were removed by Facilities and Real Estate Services. (Photo from Mariana Carrillo Gonzalez)
The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units have been completely replaced, although final installation has been delayed because of manufacturing delays at the factory, Lane said. A temporary air conditioning solution was put in place early this fall semester to cool the rooms. Signs posted above the air conditioners on the windows said the permanent systems would be installed in mid-September.
Undergraduate students who frequent the classrooms in DRL said they are grateful for the new renovations, but wish there were more improvements.
College senior Margaret Zheng, who spends a lot of time in DRL as a math major and co-president of the Penn Undergraduate Math Society, said the classroom renovations were "very necessary and very long overdue."
Zheng said she has experienced ongoing issues in DRL throughout her time at Penn. In fall 2018, one classroom in DRL had a hole in the ceiling with an ongoing leak, prompting a student in her class to attach a plastic bag to the ceiling to temporarily mitigate the leak. The bag remained for most of the semester, she said. She had also seen broken desks, lighting, and air conditioning, Zheng added.
Zheng said DRL's appearance is likely why the Math Department receives a worse reputation than they should on campus.
"We realize there are budget concerns and things like that, but I think prioritizing the Math Department would be really beneficial," Zheng said.
Prioritizing the Math Department would encourage students to pursue the math major as well as recruit graduate students, she said. Better graduate students would also improve the undergraduate experience by providing better TAs and resources on campus, Zheng said.
College junior Jinna Han has a math class in two of the newly renovated classrooms this semester. Han said the classrooms felt bigger and the desks were newer.
"It'll never be like, Huntsman's level of like, whiteboards and everything. But I guess considering it's math, you just really need pencil and paper," Han said.
College junior Jinna Han said the classrooms felt bigger and the desks were better.
The next project will be renovations to two restrooms — a men's room and a women's room — on the fourth floor of the north wing, Lane said. The bathrooms have not been renovated since the original building was constructed, so they are desperately in need of an upgrade, Lane added.
The full bathroom renovations include replacing the toilets, sinks, lighting, and partitions. The budget for renovating the two bathrooms is $650,000, Lane said.
The administration has been working closely with the Math and Physics Department chairs for the project, Lane said. The administration held a pre-proposal meeting with an architect last week as it moves into the design phase of the bathroom renovations.
The latest project is an engineering study of the second through fourth floors of the north wing of DRL, in which architects will analyze the state of the building and propose potential areas of renovation. The timeline and budget of the project will depend on the finalized course of action the study recommends.
"We kind of have to understand what our real physical options are before we can make a choice and figure out how we're going to move forward," Lane said.
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