VOLUME 16, NUMBER 1
AUGUST 1990
SVM Plans New Facilities
State Legislature to Consider Funding in '91
At its May 5 meeting, the Purdue University Board of Trustees approved a major
building priority for the next biennial
budget request. If the project is funded as
proposed, the addition would add approximately 65.000 square feet of assignable
space to the SVM complex. For comparison, present-day Lynn Hall contains approximately 100.000 square feet of assignable space.
The justification for the new building
is the overcrowded and outdated state of
the existing SVM and the need for new facilities to allow us to educate the veterinary team for the changing demands of
the future. The building addition will represent the first major facilities update for
the School since Lynn Hall was completed in 1959. Although the SVM is the
tenth youngest veterinary school in the
United States, it is the oldest in terms of its
primary physical plant and the only school
of veterinary medicine in the United States
not to have a new hospital and/or research
(aciiuy wiiiiill iiie past uceuuc.
Although architectural drawings for
the new facility will not be completed
until the legislature has approved funding, we anticipate that the new building
will be connected to the present small
animal hospital, and that the rest of the
building will expand into and fill the
parking lot east of the current small animal hospital entrance (see figure). The
new addition is envisioned as a three to
four story building. The new ADDL. a
S10.7 million facility with 32.000 square
feet of assignable space, is presently being
constructed south of the old ADDL and
will be completed in 1991. Renovations
of the old ADDL. several areas within
Lynn Hall, and the farriery building are
also part of the overall building plan.
Programmatic allocation of space in
the new facility has been largely determined. Approximately 24.000 square feet
of the building addition will be used for the
teaching hospital. Expansion of the small
animal hospital will include additional examination rooms: additional ward space,
including space for immunosuppressed dogs
and cats, as well as for avian and exotic
species: new treatment areas to support both
medicine and surgery: new companion animal surgery suites: several special procedure
rooms for dentistry, electrodiagnostics, internal medicine, and wound management: a
modernized reception area; and an expansion of the existing critical care unit. Additions to the large animal hospital will include
space for a production medicine unit: renovation of the farriery building into a therio-
genology examination room and laboratory:
development of an equine treadmill facility
for cardiovascular, respiratory, and locomotor studies: and enlargement and modernization of existing large animal surgery facilities. Both the large and small animal hospitals will benefit from the addition of a number of rounds/conference rooms, expansion
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and expansion of clinical laboratory medicine (clinical pathology) to accommodate
such disciplines as clinical pharmacology,
clinical immunology, clinical endocrinology, etc.
Approximately 23.000 square feet of the
new building will be used to support our
basic instructional programs. New classrooms will include a large multi-media lecture hall capable of accommodating grand
rounds as well as campus-wide seminars,
research symposia, or continuing education
programs. In addition, several multi-media
instructional laboratories designed for small
group teaching are planned. Ten thousand
square feet of the instructional space has
been allocated to the Biomedical Information Resource Center (BIRC). a combined
library/independent study center. The study
center will replace the present library and
small independent study center (A-Tlabora-
VETERINARY MED.CAl
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tory) in Lynn Hall and will be equipped with
individual study carrels, group study rooms,
and computer stations where students will be
able to access teaching programs generated
by faculty at Purdue and other veterinary
schools. A 1.500 square foot student commons/lunchroom is planned as an area w here
students, faculty, and staff can interact during the course of the workday. Finally, some
8.000 square feet of space will be dedicated
to new faculty offices and student services.
New t'nrnhv offices :ire npprlprl hoth to relieve overcrowding in our present facilities
and to accommodate a gradually expanding
faculty in the future.
The remaining 18.000 square feet of the
new facility have been designated for research laboratories and animal housing. Ten
molecular biology/cell biology research laboratories will be included in the new facility.
This research resource will be augmented by
renovation of several existing laboratories in
the old ADDL building, which becomes a
part of the SVM complex when the new
ADDL is occupied. An animal housing unit
containing five rooms capable of housing
intermediate-sized animals (dogs. cats, poultry, swine, and small ruminants) completes
the plan for the new facility. The animal
housing unit will be added to a SI.2 million
University-wide animal housing unit currently being built within the SVM complex.
When various units vacate Lvnn Hall to
PURDUE  SCHOOL OF
VETERINARY MEDICINE
occupy the new facility, the space left
behind will be put to good use. The
present small animal surgery facility and
clinical pathology laboratory will form
the "Center for Clinical Investigation." to
support the clinical trials of interdisciplinary groups such as Biomedical Engineering, the Center for Paralysis Research,
and the Purdue Comparative Oncology
Program. Previously, no space in the Veterinary School was identified tor clinical
research. The current library will be
remodeled into offices. The present-day
independent study center (located in our
medical illustration unit) will become an
educational research laboratory, where
new teaching materials and technologies
can be developed.
The program plans for the new facility
now have been forwarded to the Legislative Budget Committee and the Indiana
Commission on Higher Education. The
project will be considered for funding by
the legislature in the spring of 1991. If
funding is approved, design of the facility
will begin in the summer of '91. with
actual construction beginning in "92.
Presently the School is launching a
publicity campaign to make the people of
Indiana aware of our mission and vision
of the future and its importance to the
state. We hope that you will join us in our
efforts to make the new building a reality.
- A. H. Rebar
Research Activities Update:
Diverse Faculty Research Enriches Learning Environment
The reputation of a university and its
component schools rests in part on the
national and international recognition of
the quality of its faculty. And the quality
(if the faculty is today judged in great part
by its research productivity and scholarly
activity. These measures not only describe the faculty's contribution to a body
of knowledge but are often good indicators of educational excellence as well.
Research and scholarly productivity are
inextricably linked to the vitality of a
school's graduate, professional, and postdoctoral programs and to the quality of
undergraduate education. Faculty members who are themselves excited by the
subject matter and theirexperimental work
generate a level of intellectual excitement
that permeates the classrooms, seminars,
and one-on-one experiences.
Because of the importance of research
to the overall health of our programs, continuing expansion of our research activity
was one of the major objectives identified
in the SVM's self-analysis completed in
1986-1987. Over the past four years, much
progress has been made in this area. One
measure of research productivity is the
ability to secure funds through the peer
review competitive grants process. In the
last four years our extramural research
support has increased five-fold. These
monies have been generated from a wide
variety of funding agencies including
USDA. NIH. NSF, and private foundations. This is a remarkable rate of growth
when one considers that over the same time
period, the funding climate for all sources
has become increasingly difficult. Such productivity is a great credit to the dedication,
energy, and creativity of all our faculty.
But funding statistics alone tell only a
small part of the continuing story of our
research growth and development. A more
complete picture is seen when we reflect
upon the diversity of our present day research programs and the significance of the
questions being addressed. Our faculty is
engaged in a wide range of research programs which will ultimately contribute to
the economy of the state and nation and the
health and well-being of its citizens and animals. Several of these programs, such as the
collaborative vascular graft work of our small
animal surgeons and the Hillenbrand Biomedical Engineering Center, the hard
tissue research being conducted by David
Van Sickle's Bone and Articulation Research Section, and the efforts to develop
a computer graphic alternative to the use
of animals in education, have recently
been detailed in UPDATE. Many, many
other exciting programs have emerged,
and still others are developing now. Highlighted below is a sampling of some of our
other research programs which illustrates
the diversity and relevance of our efforts.
We invite you to share our excitement!
Multifactorial Herd Diseases
Kirk Clark (VCSl, Rill Van Alstine
(VPB). Al Scheidt (VCS), andjohn Turek
(VAN): Quantifying how environmental
stressors such as high temperature may or
may not exacerbate the effects of infectious
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