Groundbreaking at Barus & Holley

Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College, to speak May 29

Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College, will present a Commencement Forum at Brown University on Saturday, May 29, at 3:30 p.m. Massey's presentation will mark the groundbreaking for new undergraduate laboratories at the Barus & Holley Building.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Brown University will celebrate the groundbreaking for its new engineering undergraduate teaching laboratories with a Commencement Forum by Walter Massey, president of Morehouse College. Massey will speak on Saturday, May 29, at 3:30 p.m. on the terrace behind the Barus & Holley Building, 184 Hope St.

Massey's address, titled "Science and Technology: It Belongs to Everyone," will discuss the importance of having a basic understanding of scientific and technical matters, and the need to attract a broader spectrum of individuals to the fields of science and technology, particularly from previously under-represented groups. He will also address the need to improve the quality of undergraduate curriculum.

The former director of the National Science Foundation and a former professor of physics and dean of the College at Brown, Massey is the ninth president of Morehouse College, the nation's only historically black, all-male, four-year, liberal arts institution.

Massey has held a range of other administrative and academic positions, including provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at the University of California; vice president for research at the University of Chicago; director of the Argonne National Laboratory; and assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois.

Brown President E. Gordon Gee will join Massey at the groundbreaking. The two-story structure will house teaching laboratories, a large computer laboratory and a 60-seat auditorium. The facility will total almost 17,000 square feet, and will be aligned as an addition to both Barus & Holley Building and Prince Laboratory.

The project includes reconstructing a limited-access stretch of Manning Street, which now leads to engineering and physics facilities, into a landscaped walkway to provide universal access to the site and to a proposed future complex of engineering and physics buildings.

Construction of the new laboratories will begin in the summer of 1999 and finish by early fall of 2000. The architect is Payette Associates Inc. of Boston. Engineering services will be provided by R.G. Vanderweil Engineers Inc. (mechanical, electrical and plumbing); Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (structural); Gordon R. Archibald Inc. (civil); Paul B. Aldinger & Associates Inc. (geotechnical); and Acentech (acoustical).

In case of rain, Massey will speak in Room 166 of the Barus & Holley Building.