Posted March 12, 2009

Rock, laser, scissors

Ribbon cutting celebrates the $25 million renovation of Beury Hall

  • Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg/Temple University President Ann Weaver Hart and Dean Hai-Lung Dai

President Ann Weaver Hart and College of Science and Technology Dean Hai-Lung Dai cut the ribbon on the newly renovated Beury Hall during a ceremony on March 5.

Built in 1963, Beury Hall is home to the departments of Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Science (formerly the Department of Geology), and houses classrooms, research and instructional laboratories and offices, as well as four state-of-the-art lecture halls.

The five-year, $25 million project included a complete renovation of the of the building’s main infrastructure, the installation of wireless technology in classrooms and lecture halls, and enhancing and upgrading research and lab facilities.

“In a university, the most important resources are, of course, its people — students and faculty,” said Dai. “To support the people to accomplish the university’s mission of engaging discovery and the dissemination of knowledge, we need good facilities.

“Beury Hall was built some 40 years ago to support this mission,” he said. “The College of Science and Technology is very grateful that the university recognized the need to modernize the laboratories for chemistry and earth and environmental science.”

The building is named in honor of Charles E. Beury, who served as a trustee of Temple from 1913 to 1952 and was the university’s second president from 1925 to 1941.