West Campus Weekly

Hello and welcome to the first edition of West Campus Weekly. This weekly newsfeed will update you on the news at West Campus. We hope you find the content both useful and informative. Feel free to pass it along to others.

West Campus Drive

The Town of Orange Selectmen recently approved the renaming of our main through street from “Frontage Road” to “West Campus Drive”. The renaming of this road will help to better identify our campus and dismiss the image of the street as a through way from the interstate. The Town will register the new name and coordinates with Google Maps to make “West Campus Drive” a searchable location. Signage is expected later this summer.

Construction at West Campus

Dining Renovation

A major construction project will soon begin in the West Campus Conference Center. Alterations to the existing dining, kitchen and servery spaces are being done to expand the seating capacity and update the facilities. Upgrades are being made to the audio visual equipment in the auditorium and the library is being transformed into a student lounge and flexible meeting space. The construction will begin within the next week. During the construction, we will not be accepting any event reservations nor general interest tour requests. All bookings will begin again in late September. Most of the construction will be completed by then, with a few of the renovations extending until early winter. Thank you to all who came to the Dining Renovation Community Meeting. Great Information was shared. Board displays will be posted later this week.

Other Construction Projects

Renovations are already underway in other areas of campus. Whiting Turner is overseeing the construction projects in B31, B27, B24. Standard Builders will be coordinating the renovations in A21. A brief project summary is below:

B31

1st floor: YARC vivarium renovation to increase capacity, completion 9-12 months
2nd floor: Microbial Diversity/Systems Biology upgrades, complete by end of summer
3rd floor: Lab reconfiguration for Cancer Biology Institute, completion 9-12 months

B27

Basement: Chemical Biology upgrades to include new cold room and autoclave, ongoing
3rd floor: Chemical Biology upgrades, ongoing

B24

2nd floor: Outfitting for the new Nanobiology Institute, completion by end of summer
3rd floor: Demolition in preparation for new labs, completion end of summer

A21

Currently in Phase 1 of construction to create the Digitalization and Conservations cores

West Campus Security Advisory

Earlier this month, the doors in all active buildings were programed to remain unlocked, Monday through Friday between the hours of 8am and 6pm. The West Campus Administration is promoting a more “open” campus, dispelling the segregated feel of the past. We hope you have found this change to be useful. The West Campus Security team is still the primary contact for all security and emergency concerns. 203-737-3111 is the number for all routine security calls. 203-479-1414 is for emergency calls only. It is important to remember that we all play an active role in securing our campus, so if you see something, say something!

A Tour of West Campus

The West Campus will be participating in this year’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas as one of the many Yale University tour stops. The festival is a 15-day festival of performing arts, lectures, and conversations that celebrates the greatest artists and thinkers from around the world. On Tuesday, June 26 at 2pm, 25 guests will tour the West Campus. The festival is very popular in the New Haven area and has been since it's inception in 1996. The University has been a proud event sponcor for many years. For more information about the festival and for a list of other Yale tours, visit The International Festival of Arts and Ideas 2012

Welcome, New Faculty

Aniko Bezur recently joined the The Center for Conservation and Preservation as the first Conservation Scientist. Aniko comes from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas and holds a scientific Ph.D. She will lead the conservation efforts of this core through her analysis and research of cultural works.

The Chemical Biology Institute has recruited two outstanding junior faculty. Jason Crawford joined in April as Assistant Professor of Chemistry coming from Harvard Medical School, while Matt Simon from Massachusetts General will begin his appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry this fall.

Jim Rothman, Chair and Professor of Cell Biology, has accepted the position of Director of the new Nanobiology Institute at West Campus and will be relocating half of his Cell Biology laboratory to the West Campus this summer. Jim's lab will focus on the discovery of principles that unite synthetic materials at the nanoscale.