Washington

Rising high: Yale's Kline Biology Tower. Credit: STEVE DUNWELL

Yale University is to spend $500 million over the next six to eight years on constructing and renovating its science and engineering facilities, in an effort to boost its reputation in these disciplines.

Private colleges across the United States are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on science and engineering buildings as they compete for students and research funding. “These schools are all vying for excellence,” says Peter Smith, director of public affairs at the Association of American Universities. “In science and engineering, excellence requires facilities.”

That may be especially true for Yale. Its president, Richard Levin, admits its reputation — excellent in the humanities — is weaker in science and engineering.

Yale already has some of the strongest science departments in the United States. The National Research Council ranked Yale's research doctorate programmes thirteenth in physics, twelfth in chemistry and tenth in cell biology among participating institutions in its 1995 report Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States. But the university did less well in engineering. The report ranks Yale's chemical engineering programme at position 32.5 and its electrical engineering at 30.5.

Whether the reputation is fair or not, the building campaign is an attempt to correct that perception, says Levin. New and improved buildings can attract better faculty, he adds.

The building programme may also represent a scheme to address years of deferred maintenance. The university began renovating campus buildings a decade ago, but has left its science buildings largely untouched. Some $300 million will go towards renovating existing facilities; the remaining $200 million will pay for five new buildings.

By spending a large sum of money now, rather than smaller amounts on maintenance and renovation over the past decade, Yale is playing “a bit of catch-up” says Jeremiah Ostriker, provost of Princeton University. “I think they realized it was a necessity.”

He adds that Yale will be able to compete in most areas of science. But catching up with some universities in engineering research may be more difficult. According to figures from the National Science Foundation, Johns Hopkins University spent $213 million on engineering research and development in the financial year 1996; Yale spent $6.6 million.

Princeton is investing $200 million in construction, with about 60 per cent of it going towards new buildings, and a further $100 million on faculty endowments and instrumentation, including $55 million to set up a new genomics centre by 2002. Harvard University is to spend $200 million on science and engineering building and renovation over the next five years.

David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology, says there is “a national trend” of universities constructing science buildings. The institute will spend $100 million on a new biology building starting in the spring: the building will cost $40 million, with the rest going on instrumentation, renovation and faculty endowments.

The US economy seems to be fuelling some of the building boom, with computer-industry entrepreneurs playing a major role. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, has begun fund-raising for a computer-science and artificial-intelligence complex. It has already received pledges worth $45 million from two donors, including $25 million from Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft.