New Buildings Better for Students

"Build it and they will come," goes the well-known line from a popular movie. Lately, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has followed that philosophy in a huge way, spending more than $73 million for two new buildings.

The 95,000-square-foot Forest Resources Building and the 130,000-square-foot Food Science Building are state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities that compare favorably with those on any campus in the world. The university built them and students are coming. "The new buildings are going to attract the brightest and the best students from around the world to Penn State," says John Floros, head of the Department of Food Science.

"The four-story Forest Resources Building will, for the first time in the school's history, allow all three professional programs—forest science, wildlife and fisheries science, and wood products—to be housed under one roof," says Charles Strauss, director of the School of Forest Resources. "The new building, on the corner of Bigler Road and Park Avenue, will offer 50 percent more space than the school's current Ferguson Building and Forest Resources Lab locations combined."

The Food Science Building, at the corner of Curtin and Bigler roads, will include modern teaching and research laboratories, classrooms and offices, plus expanded production and customer-service space for Penn State's famous University Creamery, soon to be the Berkey Creamery. The new facility will meet the needs of the food processing and manufacturing industries.