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A new research facility for chemical engineering and chemistry was dedicated Saturday, April 12. The new building, Tan Kah Kee Hall, will be devoted primarily to research and graduate education in fields that are of major importance to the Bay Area and California, including biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, electronic and advanced materials, fuels and chemicals, and the environment. "The investment in this building." said chemistry Dean Alexis T. Bell, "will be repaid many times over in the contributions of our faculty and students to our health, economy and environment." Tan Hall is the result of a partnership between the state, which provided approximately one-third of the $40-million cost following the passage of the Higher Education Bond Act (Proposition 153) in 1992, and the private sector. Hundreds of individuals, corporations and foundations contributed to the broad-based funding effort. The building contains seven floors of laboratory space, an undergraduate computer facility, a conference room and a lecture hall. The building is named in honor of the late Tan Kah Kee (1874-1961), a pioneering industrialist and philanthropist in China and Singapore who devoted his wealth to promoting education. Members of the overseas Chinese community in Southeast Asia, led by prominent business and philanthropic interests, donated millions of dollars to the project in Tan's honor. Both Chancellor Tien and Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Nobel Laureate Yuan T. Lee are on the board of the Tan Kah Kee International Association, which promotes Tan's ideals of modernization through education and democratization. "This building is testimony to the international recognition of
Ber-keley's contributions in chemical science and engineering," said
Tien. |