While space in Lammot du Pont Laboratory and Brown Laboratory is in relatively good shape, space in Quaesita Drake Hall is clearly not. Fifty years after its construction, Drake Hall is showing signs of age, with the majority of its research hoods and many of its teaching hoods no longer meeting safety standards. The building infrastructure also suffers insufficient power, no backup power systems, poor heating and cooling, and inadequate air handling capacity. Just a few years ago, some lab space in Drake Hall had to be condemned as unusable, while other rooms require continual attention to limit damage from leaking sinks and poor airflow. Much of the department’s teaching laboratory space for introductory chemistry courses is located in this building, and a number of these laboratories are in particularly poor shape. The decay of the teaching laboratories jeopardizes the extensive and critical undergraduate teaching mission of the department, which is one of our great strengths.

Research laboratories in Drake Hall are also in poor repair, and this poor infrastructure limits the sort of research that can be carried out. Steps were taken beginning in 2011 to partially ameliorate a crumbling Drake Hall with a partial renovation of the undergraduate organic lab teaching space. Although a positive step, the majority of teaching labs and research space remained in disrepair. An alarming fact was that there were virtually no working hoods across all of our general chemistry labs, which posed a significant threat to the safety of our students, staff, and faculty. Additionally, the visual appearance of many of our undergraduate teaching labs severely compromise our competitiveness to attract undergraduate students to our department—and to the university as a whole, as a significant portion of UD’s undergraduate student body at one time takes a chemistry lab in Drake Hall.

A plan has been in the works for over eight years to renovate Drake Hall, with an initial focus on the undergraduate teaching labs. Following lengthy planning meetings involving UD Facilities, UD Administration, an architectural firm, and faculty/staff from the department, plans were put in place to initially build an addition to Drake Hall. This addition would serve as the flex space for renovation of the rest of Drake Hall, while the majority of the building remained functional for teaching and research. Cost capping by the UD Board of Trustees required the project be split to initially only include the building of the addition, with a firm budget of $15M. The final costs of the addition were a few million more than this figure, and the overrun will need to be made up with UD Development fundraising efforts. We are happy to report the building of the addition has been completed, with three floors put into use starting in spring 2023. The final floor, equipped with hoods for an organic chemistry teaching lab, will be ready for use starting in spring 2024.

The building of the addition (Phase 1) was intended to be a first necessary step that would allow the initial goal of renovating the undergraduate teaching labs and research space of Drake Hall. The next step toward this goal is deferred maintenance objectives, which has commenced with most objectives still in the planning stage. This project will address safety concerns (sprinklers), a new air handler, new electrical and backup power, windows, ceiling, new elevator, bathroom ADA compliance, and other items. Following this, we can then return our attention to the initial goal of upgraded undergraduate teaching labs and research space (Phase 2). Although the timing of when Phase 2 will commence is uncertain, we find some encouragement from President Assanis’ recent remarks at the General Meeting of the UD Faculty Senate on December 4, where he assured the audience that UD would now turn their attention to Phase 2 and the renovation of the teaching and research space of Drake Hall.

Moving forward, we are excited to work towards making the renovation a reality. Once funding is secured, the addition will serve as flex space to move teaching labs and/or research labs into, while renovations of entire floors or sections of “Old Drake” are being addressed. The ground floor of the addition shows us a snapshot of what all of our general chemistry teaching laboratories will look like once completed. 

Our department owes a huge debt of gratitude to the generous donations of many of our friends and alumni that have helped close the funding gaps of this project. The lobby of the addition recognizes one such donation, with a dedication that reads:

“With Gratitude, we recognize the generous support for Drake Hall and dedicate this space as the Joseph & Judith DeStefano Chemistry Wing, where students and faculty will seek scientific innovations and discoveries that impact the community at UD and beyond.”

The modernization of our teaching and research laboratory space will have a profound impact on our undergraduate majors and researchers, as well as on the thousands of additional students we teach every year.