Penn State Intercom......April 30, 2001
Fayette's oldest building
getting a totally new look
Penn
State Fayette's first building, named in honor of the Eberly family, has
a new look -- and the newest tools in education. The renovated building
will serve as the new home for a state-of-the art corporate training center,
The Cub's Den child-care center, interactive teaching classrooms, office
space and an art studio. It also will house labs for the administration
of justice, engineering technology and IST programs, as well as three
new student computer labs.
The demands of modern building codes, ADA compliance and state-of -the art technologies and communications systems required a complete reconstruction of the interior of the building. The $6 million renovation achieves maximum adaptive reuse of the building and will be completed on schedule by June 1.
The groundbreaking held May 6, 1967, announced the opening of the Penn State Fayette campus. Previously the college had been located in a few buildings in downtown Uniontown. In 1967, the purchase of approximately 200 acres of the Garner Farm gave Penn State Fayette more of a university campus atmosphere.
On July 14 1968, the campus' first classroom building was officially named the Eberly Building.
Through the support of The Eberly Foundation and others, the campus has grown to 1,150 students and 11 buildings, including the recently constructed $6 million Biomedical Technology Center housing state-of the-art physics, biology, chemistry, nursing and computer labs and lecture halls.
Each of the Eberly building's 13 classrooms will now have a unique look, all designed with faculty input, and incorporating the latest computer technology. Each room is furnished with a computer-equipped podium, featuring clocks, speakers and audio-visual hookups. Faculty and staff offices have been spaced in a way that entirely changes the interior perspective of the building, and it is likely that a student who took a class in Eberly before the renovation wouldn't recognize it now.
Aside from gleaming aesthetics -- such as mahogany and glass columns and open frosted glass walls -- no stone has been left unturned in making the building a technological benchmark for southwestern Pennsylvania. A total of 180 new computers grace the student computer lab, and 25 more fill the IST classroom. Faculty will have ability to conduct video teleconference demonstrations during class time.
Hundreds of miles of cable have been laid to support these systems, as well as those of the new ARL/AAC (Advanced Acoustic Concepts/Applied Research Laboratory) initiative that also will have an office in the building. This partnership among the U.S. Navy, Penn State University Park and Penn State Fayette has become the hub of an effort to create superior naval defense weapons.
The Eberly Corporate Training Center will provide a permanent home to the Melega Mural. Originally mounted in the National City Bank Building in downtown Uniontown, the mural has been completely restored and will be hung across from the center's wide-screen television monitors and speaker system, creating a blend of history and technology.
Renovation of the Eberly building would not have been possible without the generosity of the Eberly family, which continues to support the campus and its students in many ways.