Trustees approve building projects and a campus energy plan
At its second meeting of the academic year, Stanford's Board of Trustees took action on nine construction projects and approved a $438 million plan to improve the campus energy system. Trustees visited the Anderson Collection, toured the William H. Neukom Building at Stanford Law School and talked about Occupy Stanford.
Board of Trustees Chair Leslie Hume
On the evening before its Dec. 12-13 meeting, the Stanford University Board of Trustees visited the Anderson Family – Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, and their daughter, Mary Patricia Anderson Pence – to personally thank them for donating the core of their collection of 20th-century American art to Stanford.
The Sunday evening visit also gave trustees the chance to tour the Anderson Collection, which the family has built over the last 50 years, and to hear them talk about their renowned collection.
"It was a special pleasure to see the art they have collected with such love and thought," said Leslie Hume, chair of the Board of Trustees. "The Andersons were incredibly gracious. It was a wonderful opportunity for trustees to say thank you and to meet the people who have made such a generous gift to Stanford."
On Monday, trustees approved a site for the museum Stanford plans to build for the collection, which will contain 121 works by 86 artists, including some of the foremost examples of post-World War II American art in public and private hands.
Trustees also approved a site for the McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History.
Both buildings will play a critical role in expanding and enhancing the role the arts play throughout campus. An announcement about the Anderson Collection at Stanford University and the McMurtry Building was published Dec. 14 in Stanford Report.
The arts buildings were among nine construction projects making their way through the board's approval process, including facilities devoted to sports, laboratory research, research computing, and bioengineering and chemical engineering.
Trustees also gave concept approval to the Campus Energy System Improvements project, which is designed to meet the university's energy needs through 2050. The total, preliminary estimated cost of the project is $438 million.
Presentations on legal education, ethics, Occupy Stanford movement
In addition to taking action on construction projects, trustees also toured the new William H. Neukom Building at Stanford Law School and heard presentations on legal education from Larry Kramer, dean of Stanford Law School, and from Larry Marshall, director of the Mills Legal Clinic of Stanford Law School, where students receive hands-on training by representing real people with real cases – with close supervision by faculty.
Hume said trustees asked President John Hennessy and Stanford General Counsel Debra Zumwalt to talk about what Stanford does to encourage a culture of responsibility and good citizenship on campus – in light of the child sex abuse scandal that has rocked Penn State University in recent weeks.
"We wanted to know how Stanford communicates the message – to students, faculty and staff – that this is a place that takes ethics and responsibility seriously," Hume said. "We felt very good at the end of the discussion that Stanford is a place that, from the top down, considers responsible, ethical behavior very important, communicates that philosophy consistently, and has policies and procedures in place to enforce that. It was not a long discussion, but it was an important one."
Trustees also heard a presentation from Stanford Police Chief Laura Wilson on community policing on campus, specifically about how she works with students involved in the Occupy movement to ensure their rights to free assembly.
"Wilson absolutely takes free speech and the power of students to protest very seriously, but she works with students to make sure this is done in a safe way," Hume said. "She showed us pictures and talked to us about the experience of working with Stanford students during the Big Game weekend, when Stanford students gathered in solidarity with UC-Berkeley students."
Lab renovations for School of Medicine
Trustees gave concept approval – the first step in the approval process – for renovating two buildings, located at 3155 and 3165 Porter Drive, which have been leased by the School of Medicine for research programs.
The total cost for renovating 3155 Porter Drive, a two-story, 69,000-square-foot building, is estimated at $19.5 million. The focus of the renovation projects will be to modernize the building's existing laboratories. The Medical School will make substantial improvements to the building's mechanical, engineering and plumbing systems, which are nearing the end of their useful lives and are insufficient to support the additional lab spaces planned for the building.
Programs currently slated for 3155 Porter Drive include the School of Medicine Sleep Center, the Department of Radiology and the Department of Genetics.
The total cost for renovating 3165 Porter Drive, a two-story, 91,600-square-foot building, is estimated at $23.8 million. The focus of the renovation will be to convert office space to laboratories. Currently, four research programs are slated to occupy portions of the building: the Stanford Genome Center, the Center for Personalized Medicine, Radiology and Imaging Facilities, and the Sleep Center.
Reducing Stanford's carbon footprint
Trustees also gave concept approval to the Campus Energy System Improvements project, which is designed to meet the university's energy needs through 2050. The total, preliminary estimated cost of the project is $438 million.
Under the proposed plan, Stanford will buy electricity via direct access to the energy market; build a new central energy facility that recovers waste heat from the campus chilled water system to meet the bulk of campus heating needs; convert the existing central steam system to a more efficient hot water system; build a new and expanded electrical substation; and, eventually, decommission and demolish the aging Cardinal Cogeneration plant and the existing electrical substation.
Once the project is completed, the campus will use 70 percent of the waste heat currently expelled from cooling towers to meet 80 percent of its heat demands; reduce campus water consumption by more than 18 percent; and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to less than half of what they are today.
The Campus Energy System Improvement project is the largest component of Stanford's Energy and Climate Plan.
Board action on other construction projects
The board gave design approval – the third step in the process – to a $17 million addition to the Arrillaga Family Sports Center, the home of the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation.
Trustees gave design, project and construction approval to the Arrillaga Family Athletic Facility at SLAC. The budget for the project has decreased to $5.6 million from $11.6 million, due to a reduction in the facility's size to 16,800 square feet from 25,000 square feet. The plans call for a two-story metal building with an indoor fitness facility, lockers, showers and restrooms. The plans also call for exterior facilities, including basketball, volleyball, bocce ball, horseshoe and tennis courts; a soccer field; and a barbeque pavilion.
The board also gave project approval to the Stanford Research Computing Facility, the Satellite Research Animal Facility and the Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Building.
Finally, trustees gave construction approval to the expansion of Stanford Auxiliary Library III, a climate-controlled book storage facility in Livermore.
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