• U. of Wyoming Breaks Ground for 79,000-Square-Foot Visual-Arts Center (U. of Wyoming rendering)

• In U. of Colorado LEED Buildings, Better Insulation and High-Tech Windows Interfere With Cell-Phone Service

• George Washington U. Says Science and Engineering Facility Will Cost $275-Million

• Kent State U. Will Relocate Its Growing Geauga Twinsburg Campus

Art Building West, which won an American Institute of Architects Honor Award in 2007, has been closed since the June 2008 flood that inundated much of the U. of Iowa campus. (Chronicle photos by Lawrence Biemiller)

Iowa City — After extensive negotiations with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the University of Iowa accepted bids on Tuesday on a project to reopen a much-praised art building damaged in the June 2008 floods that caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to the campus.

The project will restore Art Building West, designed by Steven Holl Architects and opened in 2006, to its original appearance. The building, which earned a 2007 honor award from the American Institute of Architects, is best known for a library wing cantilevered out over an old quarry pond.

The 2008 flood, which affected 22 of the university's buildings, caused tremendous damage to the...

• U. of Hawaii Starts Work on 3 Buildings for New West O'ahu Campus (U. of Hawaii photo)

• Louisiana State U. at Baton Rouge Breaks Ground for $33.9-Million Research Facility

• New Catholic Center at Penn State U. at University Park Will Be Named for Sue Paterno

• Contractor's Error During Roof Repair at U. of Arkansas at Fayetteville Kills Dozens of Fish

A New York State court has ruled that Stony Brook University's plan to severely cut programs at its sustainability campus, in Southampton, N.Y., violates state education law, reports the The East Hampton Press. A group of students had sued the State University of New York branch, which planned to close the academic programs to save money, amid severe state budget problems. According to the newspaper, Judge Paul J. Baisley Jr. said the university's council had not reviewed the decision, as required by law. A Stony Brook spokeswoman said that the university would respond to the ruling and that its council would soon "convene to further discuss the decision to relocate the undergraduate and residential programs from Southampton to the Main Campus."

• U. of Minnesota at Duluth Adds $15-Million Civil-Engineering Building (Kate Joyce Studios photo; see more images here)

• Harvard U. Celebrates 31st and 32nd LEED-Certified Projects

• Mississippi Community College Begins Replacing Structures Lost to Katrina

• Calhoun Community College Readies $17-Million Robotics Center

The Salt Lake Tribune reports on the space crunch faced by a number of colleges in Utah, with a memorable anecdote a few paragraphs down:

At Snow College, a small but growing community college in Ephraim, space is so tight that students study in a room where cadavers are stored.

“For a school with a terrific reputation for pre-med and pre-engineering, this is embarrassing,” Snow President Scott Wyatt said.

The Tribune story mainly discusses a plan at Utah Valley University to acquire 100 acres once taken up by a World War II-era steel mill, two miles north of the campus. The property is now slated for redevelopment. If the $5-million purchase is completed, the cleaned-up land would provide space for intramural-sports fields and student-life facilities. The deal joins a trend of redevelopment projects among higher-education institutions.

The newspaper says Utah Valley has seen a...

• U. of Southern California Dedicates $130-Million Campus Center (AC Martin Partners rendering)

• Thom Mayne Will Design Computer-Science Building for Cornell U.

• Vincennes U. Opens $2.5-Million Diesel-Technology Lab Facility

• Utah State U. Plants Trees in Anticipation of Losing Existing Maples on Quad

An addition to the front of Buchanan and Marshall Halls brings big improvements to the 1956 dorms. (Chronicle photographs by Lawrence Biemiller)

Buchanan Hall was only 20 years old in 1976, when I moved in as a Franklin & Marshall College freshman, but already it left a lot to be desired. Like its twin, Marshall Hall, Buchanan was a three-story shoebox of a dorm, with 20 double rooms per floor and cinderblock walls that echoed with the music pounding out of our giant stereo speakers. The showers were communal, but that was about it for social space, except for an underused lounge outside of what had once been a dining hall connecting Buchanan and Marshall. Buchanan's red-brick exterior had one horizontal band of limestone trim and a couple of vertical stripes, but architecturally it was about as exciting as wax paper.

A decade or so ago, both Buchanan and Marshall got partial...

• Angelo State U. Breaks Ground for $35-Million, 400-Bed Residence Hall (Angelo State U. rendering)

• Donor John Purdue's Wish 'Was That Every Building Must Be Made of Brick'

• Grand Rapids Community College Renames Former Davenport U. Campus

• Bucking Criticism, Haywood Community College Presses to Make New Arts Building Sustainable

Laura Wolfgang holds Oliver, her Black Welsh Mountain lamb. (Photos by Scott Carlson)

Poultney, Vt. — At Green Mountain College's post-petroleum farm, students learn how to grow crops without using fossil fuels to drive tractors or haul in copious quantities of fertilizer. Much of the work here—plowing, mowing, improving the soil, and so on—is done with the aid of animals, which are vital partners in the farming endeavor.

Recently, I stood out in a sunny pasture here with two sustainable-agriculture students, Dayna Halprin and Laura Wolfgang, along with a cow named Princess. True to her name, Princess conveyed an air of bovine entitlement, amplified by the way that Ms. Halprin and Ms. Wolfgang stroked her hide and cooed at her.

"I love Princess—she's a good cow," Ms. Halprin said. A moment later, as Princess's big, wet nose nudged her face, she added: "Hey, don't eat my hat!"

"I...