Alden Trust gives $6M to WPI; Grant will pay for new Life Sciences Lab Center.

Byline: Jacqueline Reis

WORCESTER - The George I. Alden Trust recently made the largest gift in its history: a $6 million donation to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to renovate and integrate undergraduate science labs into a new Undergraduate Life Sciences Laboratory Center.

Mr. Alden, a Templeton native who died in 1926, was one of the first faculty members of WPI, and he and fellow faculty member Milton Higgins won national recognition in the late 1800s. Both men were also among the founding officers of the Norton Emery Wheel Co. in 1885, and their names pepper the history of several Worcester institutions.

The Undergraduate Life Sciences Laboratory Center will do for undergraduates what the new Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park has done for the school's graduate students in the life sciences and related bioengineering fields. The renovation will be in Goddard Hall and will bring together biology and biotechnology, biomedical engineering, chemistry and biochemistry and chemical engineering.

It will be a refreshing change for professors and students, said Jill Rulfs, associate professor of biology and biotechnology. Her department is housed in Salisbury Labs, which was built in 1888 and last renovated in the early 1970s. Although there are plenty of computers in classrooms, she noted, there is only one in each biology lab.

"We are looking forward to having computers at every lab station," she said, and they're also looking forward to more interdisciplinary teaching. The integrated space will be a springboard for more integrated curriculum, she said.

The college learned of the gift in late December, said WPI President and CEO Dennis D. Berkey.

"It was wonderful," he said. The project will cost $12 million in all, and $11 million of that is the Alden Trust. The first $5 million was from a 1997 gift for academic facilities. Both gifts are among the largest in WPI history.

"Throughout WPI's history, George Alden and the George I. Alden Trust have been tremendous supporters and partners of the university, and for that we are deeply grateful," Mr. Berkey said.

The life sciences is an area in which WPI hopes to increase enrollment, especially among women, Mr. Berkey said.

Science in general is of particular interest to the Alden Trust, according to Warren S. Fletcher, one of four trustees. "The trustees felt that this particular project ... was critically important to helping to ensure that the graduates not only come out with book knowledge but come out of WPI with practical knowledge and how to apply it," Mr. Fletcher said.

It didn't hurt that WPI is one of three organizations mentioned specifically in the trust documents. The other two are Worcester Vocational School (now Worcester Technical High School) and the YMCA.

Susan B. Woodbury, chairwoman of the trust, said, "The Alden Trust is proud to help WPI take its undergraduate life science offerings to a world-class level."

Work on the renovation is scheduled to begin in July and finish by February 2009.

Contact Jacqueline Reis at [e-mail].