Chemistry Crisis

History

Built in 1964, Dunbar Hall at North Dakota State University, is a crisis situation not only for NDSU as an entire campus, but also for the state of North Dakota, and agriculture research/education programs. Dunbar Hall is right next to the Memorial Union, and many students have had general chemistry courses and labs held inside.

The Crisis

Dunbar Hall is currently in a crisis state, as the building is seen as unsafe in multiple ways. Dunbar Hall is home to many first-year students taking their general requirements of chemistry, in addition to graduate students, staff, faculty and copious amounts of student and faculty lead research. Research is a critical component to NDSU as we are a "student focused, land grant, research university." Research at NDSU is not only part of our campus history, but also imperative to the state of North Dakota, and agricultural programs within the state and university.  

As Dunbar Hall currently stands, much of the equipment is obsolete, and there are concerns with the vents over counter spaces where there are experiments, and the potential for far worse damages to students or the building itself. This is a crisis in particular to agriculture because chemistry research is used for agriculture in a variety of ways, such as the chemicals used in crop fields, on livestock, pest prevention and much more.

2015 State Legislative Session

Preparation for the legislative session begins the day after the current sessions ends. NDSU's campus newspaper, The Spectrum, did an article in September of 2014 on the issue, a few months prior to the session, which begins in the beginning of January.

In the state of North Dakota, the legislative session happens every other year. Last year I fortunately had opportunities to travel to the capital to testify on sate funded capital projects, scholarships, and student funded projects during the legislation session. One of the topics of discussion was to demolish the current Dunbar Hall completely, and build a brand new, Dunbar II. Dunbar II would most importantly be safer than the currently building, as well as it would provide updated resources and equipment to continue research, and also hold more students while maintaining small class sizes and labs. 

About a week before 2015 session kicked off, this article from the Fargo Forum was written. We knew that getting funding for the building would be a challenge. However, by the end of the session the Dunbar project was added to the state budget... but on a contingency of North Dakota state revenues... which unfortunately were not met. This link provides a summary of all of the 2015 Legislative Session projects, and the outcomes once the session handed come to a close.

Another article from May 2015 regarding an evacuation due to the ventilation system in the building.

Moving forward, Dunbar Hall will once again find itself on the agenda as a topic of discussion in the 2017 Legislative Session. But the crisis continues outside of NDSU - for other campuses and even high schools that have a lack of available resources, or funding to keep the programs going. The state of North Dakota could have easily paid for the building demolition and renovations with the large amount of money that we are "saving," but unfortunately it was placed on the contingency of the budget, which wasn't met due to the drop in oil values.

We need to keep our resources directed towards education to ensure that these programs are not on the "back burner."

https://www.ndsu.edu/alphaindex/buildings/Building::362