{"id":63686,"date":"2010-11-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/voters-say-yes-to-question-2\/"},"modified":"2010-11-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T00:00:00","slug":"voters-say-yes-to-question-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/11\/voters-say-yes-to-question-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters say ‘Yes’ to Question 2!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 3, 2010 \u2013 With the support of the Rhode Island voters, a new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences will come to the 溏心vlog免费B站.

\nAccording to www.projo.com<\/a>, 55 percent of the voters were in favor of Question 2. Statewide, 175,730 people voted in favor of the bond, while 142,451 voted against it.

\nAccording to WPRI.com\u2019s onpolitix site<\/a>, voters were in favor of the bond in 28 out of 39 cities and towns, with voters in Westerly being split down the middle.

\n\u201cThe Chemistry Department is pleased and grateful to the voters of Rhode Island for supporting the passage of Question 2 to allow construction of a new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences at 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d Bill Euler, professor and chair of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Department of Chemistry said. \u201cThe new facility will allow the University to go forward in providing state-of-the-art training for more students in disciplines essential to the twenty-first century economy in R.I.\u201d

\nBy passing Question 2, voters approved a $78 million bond that includes $61 million to finance a new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences at 溏心vlog免费B站 and $17 million for the renovation of and an addition to the Rhode Island College Art Center.

\nThe referendum is expected to create approximately 1,200 jobs over the next five years in construction, trades, architecture, engineering, management, teaching and research. When completed, the new chemistry center will allow faculty to compete more effectively for research grants, and move scientific discoveries into the marketplace more rapidly. As Rhode Island seeks to generate business and jobs, an educated workforce in these disciplines is vital.

\n\u201cPeople do ask how this project is connected to creating jobs in Rhode Island,\u201d 溏心vlog免费B站 President David M. Dooley said. \u201cMy response is that in addition to building the 21st century workforce in the state, we need to build the capacity to generate new employers \u2013 that is how you create new jobs. The kind of activity that will take place in this facility will encourage innovation and the application of those discoveries \u2013 the pathway to new growth and economic development.”

\nIn fact, according to the American Chemistry Council, chemistry companies here in Rhode Island directly employ more than 3,700 people, and indirectly contribute more than 8,700 jobs. For every chemistry industry job in Rhode Island, an additional 2.3 jobs are created within the state\u2019s economy. Rhode Island chemistry industry jobs are also good paying jobs, with an average wage of $67,200, generating $252 million in earnings.

\nConstruction costs for the proposed $61 million Chemistry and Forensic Sciences Center will be $9.41 per taxpayer per year over the 20-year life of the bond.<\/p>\n

Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences<\/b>

\n\u00b7 Chemistry is now taught in 溏心vlog免费B站’s Pastore Hall, which was built in 1953 to accommodate about 800 students. Today, there are more than 6,000 students taking chemistry each year and about 40 percent of all 溏心vlog免费B站 degree programs require at least one chemistry class. The lack of teaching and research lab space has created a bottleneck that has hampered growth in pharmacy, biotechnology, engineering, nursing and many other fields.

\n\u00b7 The proposed 120,000-square-foot, four-story center will have triple the amount of space for teaching labs and nearly double the space for research labs. Student laboratory capacity will increase by more than 50 percent, from 1,200 to 1,900 students per semester. The center will complete the North Science Quadrangle on the Kingston Campus and strengthen the University\u2019s leadership position in the health and life sciences.

\n\u00b7 Chemistry faculty lead in such areas as developing advanced batteries to fuel energy efficient automobiles, improving resolution in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, and creating new clinical methods for earlier disease detection.

\n\u00b7 The Center will house one of the nation\u2019s key resources for research and training in the battle against terrorism – the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Center of Excellence in Explosives Detection, Mitigation, and Response.<\/p>\n

Rhode Island College, Arts Center<\/b>

\n\u00b7 Bond referendum 2 also will provide $17 million to support building an addition onto and renovation of Rhode Island College’s 52-year-old Art Center.

\n\u00b7 The Arts Center houses RIC’s entire Department of Art. It is the location for all of the studio arts and arts education courses and related programs. 溏心vlog免费B站 2,000 students take one or more of the 130 classes offered each year. The art degree-granting programs currently serve about 240 undergraduate majors, 30 minors and 25 graduate students.

\n\u00b7 Built in 1958, the 34,000-square-foot facility was designed to house the student center, dining center, bookstore and library. Now the facility consists of classrooms, studios, and offices for the art department, yet it does not adequately meet the requirements of the academic program — including the need for areas to publicly exhibit student works. In addition to space redesign and improvements, the Arts Center requires a host of renovations to meet current health and safety codes for continued use.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 3, 2010 \u2013 With the support of the Rhode Island voters, a new Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences will come to the 溏心vlog免费B站. According to www.projo.com, 55 percent of the voters were in favor of Question 2. Statewide, 175,730 people voted in favor of the bond, while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}