| Museums in proximity: | The newest structure on The University of Akron campus is the 11,300-square-foot Gas Turbine Testing Facility for use by College of Engineering faculty and students. A nearby building has been renovated for use by engineering students who are in the second year of the three-year prestigious "Challenge X" competition. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors Corp., the goal is to re-engineer a Chevrolet Equinox sport-utility vehicle to sharply reduce energy consumption and emissions of pollutants while maintaining performance. The 70,000-square-foot addition to Guzzetta Hall, home to the College of Fine and Applied Arts, will be completed in 2006, bringing all the academic programs in the performing arts - dance, theatre, music and arts administration - under one roof. The features of this addition include seven technology-enhanced dance studios with an alternative/experimental performance venue; a design and lighting studio; scene and costume shops; trainer and physiotherapy facilities; and technology-enhanced classrooms. The Archives of the History of American Psychology, housed at The University of Akron, was accepted into the prestigious Smithsonian Institution Affiliations program in 2002. The Psychology Archives, which is the largest and most famous resource of its kind in the world, is the first archive in the nation to be granted affiliate status. The UA facility's holdings include collections from more than 700 psychologists; records of more than 100 psychological journals and organizations; 153 miles of child development film plus 250 additional reels of file; 3,000 rare photographs; 5,000 test cards, blanks, and manuals; 3,000 rare and antiquarian books in psychology, philosophy, and science; and approximately 700 pieces of psychological apparatus, such as B.F. Skinner's first teaching machine, Stanley Milgrim's "shock" machine, and brass instruments from 19th century psychology laboratories. The Molecular Spectroscopy Laboratory, operated by the Department of Chemistry, is one of the best-equipped and most productive laboratories of its kind in the state. The department's Unityplus 750 MHz NMR instrument is one of only two of its type in the world that has accessories geared for polymer research. The equipment enables the Department of Chemistry to assist the research efforts of more than 40 local, national and international companies. The Applied Mathematics Scientific Computation Laboratory is a duplicate of a laboratory at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The laboratory offers undergraduate and graduate students, along with doctoral engineering and applied mathematics students, an opportunity to conduct mathematical modeling and computation in material science and crystal growth. The University of Akron is one of the nation's pioneers in distance learning, a high-tech way to bring together students and teachers located in different cities. The new system connects University of Akron instructors through a two-way fiber-optic network to classrooms at Wayne College and every high school and the Career Center in fast-growing Medina County. Students of all ages can now take a variety of multimedia college courses at these locations, and interact with their peers and instructors, without traveling to our central campus. The University of Akron is the nation's largest single center of polymer education. It serves more than 300 graduate students in the College of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering. The University also offers noncredit training in plastics processing and testing, a two-year degree program in polymer technology, undergraduate polymer specializations in chemistry and chemical engineering, and an undergraduate degree program in mechanical polymer engineering. These varied programs serve an industrial cluster that accounts for nearly one quarter of Ohio's manufacturing output. |