The building blocks of learning are coming together in a new classroom building project. It's gathering steam and funding, and now has a name -- Warren and Leta Giedt Hall -- and a location, near Kemper Hall in the Engineer-ing/Physical Sciences district of campus.

Faced with increased student enrollment -- about 4,000 additional students are expected by 2015 -- the campus is developing new classroom space to serve its instructional needs. Due to open in 2006, the two-story Giedt Hall will provide five new classrooms and lecture rooms and in-clude up to 650 student seats.

Faculty philanthropy

"I think this classroom building sets an example for people who are dedicated to academics and have the resources to make a difference," says John Meyer, vice chancellor for resource management and planning. "The donors were truly engaged with their students and the classroom experience during their careers."

The university recently received two donations for the new hall from UC Davis faculty -- a $2.5 million gift from Warren Giedt and his wife, Leta, and a second gift of $400,000 from Rand Schaal and his father, Ted. The campus will use its funds to leverage the $6 million necessary to construct the 16,000-square-foot classroom building.

Giedt is a professor emeritus in mechanical and aeronautical engineering. He was recruited as the first chair of the mechanical engineering department in 1965 after spending18 years on the faculty at UC Berkeley. In 1972, he was named associate dean for graduate studies.

Internationally known for research in heat transfer, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, Giedt has received numerous teaching awards and, in 1993, he and his wife established the College of Engineering's first endowed professorship with a deferred gift.

Schaal is a professor emeritus of geology, and a UC Davis graduate. His classes on the solar system and lunar geology were popular and drew hundreds of students. He and his father, Ted Schaal, made a gift of $1.4 million to UC Davis in 1998. Of that, $1 million was designated to build Schaal Aquatics Center, now under construction.

The remaining $400,000 was designated to help the university plan new lecture facilities in Geidt Hall. The hall's 250-seat lecture room will be named Rand and Ted Schaal Auditorium.

Creating classroom space

In March, a planning advisory group held its first meeting to develop the new classroom building as well as a classroom master plan aimed at accommodating student growth.

Meyer, who is co-chairing the Campus Classroom Planning Committee along with Pat Turner, the vice provost for undergraduate studies, said the building will serve general assignment purposes with a special emphasis on engineering and science instruction.

"As enrollment continues to increase," Turner said, "it is critical that the campus swiftly provide new classroom facilities to assure we maintain a high quality academic experience for students."

She said the campus welcomes faculty feedback on classroom space needs and suggests that they send e-mail to newclassrooms@ucdavis.edu.

In 2002-03, UC Davis' classroom usage was at 100 percent of the California Postsecondary Education Commission guidelines, which means that all available classroom seats are utilized an average of 35 hours per week.

The campus currently has 8,000 student seats in use, said Rick Keller, assistant vice chancellor for capital resource management, who also serves on the committee. "We're meeting state standards on classroom usage," Keller said, "but will need to add about 1,400 classroom seats by 2015.

Toward this goal, the campus now has under construction a new 500-seat lecture facility as part of the Sciences Laboratory Project. Ultimately, the campus will need to find a few hundred additional seats for classroom usage by 2015, a date by which the campus estimates 30,000 students will be enrolled.

During the past several years, Keller noted, the campus has remodelled classrooms in Young, Everson, Wellman and Olson halls, and has opened new classroom space in some of its professional schools, such as veterinary medicine.

Groundbreaking for Giedt Hall is ex-pected in fall 2004. Meanwhile, the building committee will continue to meet.

"Initial efforts have focused on the configuration of a new classroom building planned to be located adjacent to the engineering buildings," Meyer said.

The committee proposed that the new facility be built on a parcel east of the existing Architects and Engineering Barn and just north of Kemper Hall. The site currently includes single-story temporary facilities in place for more than 30 years. The facilities will be vacated with the completion of the new Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility in the Health Sciences District.

The committee has developed a preliminary planning guide abstract that describes the facility, and planners hope to select an architect by the end of fall.

If budgetary resources make it possible, it's proposed that the building also include two or more smaller classrooms of about 40 seats, Meyer said.

The three larger rooms would include tiered, fixed seating and a full complement of audiovisual equipment. The smaller rooms would have loose chairs to provide flexibility in their use.

Designs also include a service room or rooms to support the larger rooms, where lecture and demonstration materials can be stored and easily moved to the lecture rooms, Meyer said.

Other committee members include Cheryle Brown Lohsé, associate vice chancellor for development; John Bruno, vice provost for information and educational technology; Jack Farrell, registrar; Matthew Farrens, professor and chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Undergraduate Instruction and Program Review; Jerry Johnson, senior facility analyst; Maria Miglas, assistant registrar; Billy Sanders, assistant dean in the College of Engineering; Winston Ko, chair of the physics department; and Fred Wood, associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Letters and Science.