Veterinary students are getting ready to move out of what they call "substandard" temporary space and into the building they have been expecting since its official groundbreaking in April 2004.
The School of Veterinary Medicine building at 38th and Woodland streets -- to be named for Vernon and Shirley Hill, who donated $10 million for its construction -- is nearing completion after more than two years of renovations.
The interior and the back of the exterior still need to be finished, but completion is scheduled for this fall.
First-year veterinary students are currently taking classes in the Rosenthal Building at 38th and Spruce streets, which has a room able to seat the entire first-year class of about 110 students.
Veterinary students say they expect the main classrooms of the Vernon and Shirley Hill Pavilion will be much more student-friendly than their current accommodations.
As it currently stands, the room in Rosenthal is so wide that not everyone can see the board at the front of the room. Administrators had to place television sets on the sides of the room to allow everyone to see the screen, students say.
"I deal with it, but not everybody can see the front screen. You can't really see the TVs that they have up," first-year veterinary student Elena Shockman said.
And both students and faculty seem eager to move in.
"Everybody is pretty excited about it. ... A new building will be more conducive to learning," first-year veterinary student Warren Waybright said.
"I'm excited for it because right now our facilities and classrooms are pretty much substandard," Shockman added.
The four-story Hill Pavilion is expected to cost about $75 million.
The first and second floors will include a public lounge, seminar and lecture rooms, a new library and study spaces. The basement will contain a rodent habitat.
The third and fourth floors will include research laboratories, mainly for the use of the school's faculty, while the fourth floor will be used by the Penn School of Medicine.
"Part of the reason the Medical School is collaborating with us is that we probably wouldn't have had the funds to fit out the fourth floor, so the Medical School is assisting with that," Jeffrey Wortman, a Veterinary School dean, said.
The Medical School will use the fourth floor for about five years. The space will then be given to the Veterinary School.
"It is wonderful that we are getting this building," Animal Biology professor Olena Jacenko said, "We sorely needed this building for a long time."
Both faculty and students said they feel their needs will be met in the project's design.
"The administration has been great. They've included us in the process, asked us for our opinion and things that they could do to improve it," first-year Veterinary School Class President Jeffrey Stupine said.
