By Alida Tieberg
For Murphy News Service

It was the best of buildings, it was the worst of buildings …

With apologies to Charles Dickens, who wasn’t describing facilities at the University of Minnesota in “A Tale of Two Cities,” the parallel seems to work when considering the English department’s long-awkward relationship with budding scientists, inventors and techies in Lind Hall.

The first entrance into Lind Hall from Church Street displays flyers from student groups, recycling bins and stacks of newspapers not unlike any other college building.

Past the second set of closed doors are flat-screen televisions broadcasting College of Science and Engineering news. There are shiny wood tables with modern seating and, notably, a large and sparkling tile compass.

Most of the time, visitors can hear the grinding of coffee beans and shouts of completed orders from the Starbucks counter.

If one travels to the second and third floors, though, the setting is much different. On those floors there are no filtered water fountains, no updated bathrooms and no bustling environment of students, faculty and staff. Welcome to the English department.

A Science and Engineering Blockade

Lind Hall, built in 1911, received a partial renovation in 2010. It is home to the Institute for Mathematics & its Applications, advising offices and career center for the College of Science & Engineering (CSE), the Science and Engineering Student Board, and in a pairing of unlikely bedfellows, the Department of English.

The first floor of Lind Hall contains offices for CSE, a study center, and a new Starbucks, while the dated second and third floors of Lind Hall have classrooms and offices for the English department.

As of spring 2014 the English department has 550 majors and 50 minors, Dan Philippon, the director of undergraduate English studies, said. This is a decrease from a 2010 English newsletter’s article that boasted 740 majors, 42 faculty, and 130 graduate students.

But while the number of English majors has decreased since 2010, nearly 6,000 students take at least one English class at the U, the office staff said, adding that each semester the office receives 3,000 course evaluations from students.

While the English department’s offices and main classrooms are in Lind Hall, many English classes, such as those taken by many of the liberal arts majors, are scattered about campus.

That is why many English students and faculty believe the third largest department in the College of Liberal Arts needs its own common and study space separate from the College of Science and Engineering.

“English doesn’t really have a home,” Courtney Bolton, a sophomore English major said.

Current Conditions Less Than Desirable

“It just feels like English is low-priority,” one English lecturer, who asked for anonymity, said of current conditions in Lind Hall. “There is an institutional assumption that we [English] can be anywhere because we don’t need technology.”

That, she said, isn’t true.

Lind Hall is well-equipped with basic technologies such as DVD players, projectors, adapters and cords, but not all of the other buildings where English classes are taught have those things, she said.

The lecturer, who has been teaching at the University of Minnesota for more than two years, said she believes the major problems in Lind Hall are with heating and cooling. At the end of the day, especially in the late fall and spring, the brick building traps in heat.

There are air conditioning units in some of the classrooms, but they are usually too loud to run during class discussions, she said.

The English lecturer added that, because the radiators are often kept on well into spring, opening the windows is a waste of energy and money.

“We can’t even open the windows and some don’t even have screens,” senior English major Victoria Thompson said.

Where to find a home?

The space for English in Lind Hall has been “temporary” for more than 20 years, an office assistant for the Undergraduate English Office, said.

Finding a permanent home for English has had its challenges.

For a time, space on the West Bank campus was being considered for the department, but a lack of comfort and space for staff ruled that option out, the office staff member said.

Pillsbury Hall, on the East Bank campus, has long been considered a possible permanent home for the English department. It is now home to the earth science, geology/geophysics and history of science and technology departments.

Pillsbury Hall is the second oldest building on the Twin Cities campus, built in 1889, and is listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings, the Department of Earth Science’s website says.

The sandstone building and its well-crafted archways were constructed from Minnesota materials and is a notable building on campus.

Along with its distinctive design comes a vibrant history. John S. Pillsbury, Minnesota’s governor from 1875 to 1881 offered to personally fund Pillsbury as a “hall of science” on condition that proposed land grants stay at the University of Minnesota, the English newsletter’s article said.

“Pillsbury Hall is one of the architectural gems of the University of Minnesota. It is the best remaining example of 19th Century architecture on the Minneapolis campus … It ranks at the top of any list of University buildings to be preserved,” the Pillsbury Renovation Initiative said.

Pillsbury Hall: a likely answer

“Pillsbury Hall was first suggested as a home for the Department of English in 1996 by College of Liberal Arts Interim Dean Robert Holt.” the winter 2010 Department of English newsletter said in its cover story about the move after English Chair Shirley Garner “expressed frustration both with the limitations of Lind Hall’s space and the unfeasible options occasionally offered in its place.”

While the exterior structure is sound, the interior of Pillsbury Hall needs many improvements.

“Mechanical and electrical systems require updating. Shadowy spaces call out for more light.

The total package for re-envisioned, renovated and furnished Pillsbury Hall is estimated at $24 million,” the 2010 newsletter’s article said.

The article also said there was a new place for the geologic science studies in Pillsbury Hall that had outgrown the building’s technology.

English in Pillsbury Hall would be composed of “a single building with room for offices, classrooms, public readings, and informal gathering spaces,” the article said, something that English doesn’t have.

Lind Hall has a study center and space, but some English students say they feel out of place in the engineering and math environment.

“I love studying in the Taylor Center, but I feel intimidated by the engineering students,” student Bolton said.

“I feel like we’re annoying other majors,” student Thompson said.

Samantha Koch, a sophomore studying in cinema and media culture added, “There is no study space just for us whatsoever”

The space in Lind Hall is less than half of what the English department needs — and even that space is diminishing as demands and requirements for technology increase, the Pillsbury Hall Renovation plan from 2010 said.

Pillsbury Hall, though, would fit the English department’s space requirements and graduate students would no longer need to share a communal office in the basement of Lind Hall.

“Its 48,538 square feet match the requirements of the department for faculty and graduate student offices, while also providing classroom space; Department of English faculty and students would no longer have to chase their classes around the East Bank,” the article said.

Wilson Library, on the West Bank of the Minneapolis campus, is the library for the arts and humanities, including English. And that makes for an inconvenience, English major Thompson said.

“It doesn’t make sense that our library and our facilities aren’t close to each other,” Thompson said.

The proposal to move the English department to Pillsbury Hall had a goal to fundraise $8 million in grants and donations, the Pillsbury Hall Renovation Initiative said. But that money needed to be raised in addition to other dollars necessary for scholarships, graduate fellowships, and student publications.

“We just don’t have the research money that other departments have,” the assistant said.

But the University’s Capital Request might just allow for a change, finally.

A solution on the horizon

Each year the U makes a request to the Minnesota Legislature for building improvements and construction in which U also invests.

The requests are filled by a large bonding bill that is typically passed in even-numbered years in by the Legislature.

Making Pillsbury Hall a permanent home for English will take a few more steps, but will likely happen, Scott Elton, assistant to the associate dean for planning within the College of Liberal Arts, said.

Elton also said the plan to move the English department is “well agreed upon” by administration.

In a six-year improvement plan from 2014 to 2019, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents approved a variety of proposed projects to be funded with state support.

Included in the 2014 capital request is the Tate Science and Teaching Renovation.

The newly constructed Physics and Nanotechnology building near the University Recreation Center allowed some of the School of Physics and Astronomy to move, opening some space in Tate.

This renovation would allow the School of Earth Sciences to move to Tate from Pillsbury, and eventually English from Lind to Pillsbury, the six-year project plan report, said.

Later in the six-year plan, in 2017, is the Pillsbury Hall Renovation proposal.

2017 is an odd-numbered year, though, and may be pushed back to be included in another bonding bill, Elton said.

He added that later this year or next year, the planning department for the College of Liberal Arts will start the pre-design phase of renovation for Pillsbury Hall.

A renovation of Pillsbury Hall would “nearly complete the vision” for the Humanities District of campus that includes Folwell Hall, Jones Hall, Nicholson Hall, and Nolte Center, that was identified in a 2000 six-year capital improvement plan.

In addition to completing a large district of campus, a renovation of Pillsbury Hall would allow the Department of English at the U to have a space to finally call home.

Alida Tieberg is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.