Education Hall's massive renovation has received a major financial boost from an alum. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Oregon State University’s College of Education has received a $2 million donation from the Joyce N. Furman Memorial Trust, which will enable the university to complete a major renovation and seismic upgrade to its historic Education Hall. Furman graduated from OSU in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in science education and was a longtime supporter of the university.

Furman passed away from metastatic melanoma in 2009. A passionate advocate for education and for children, she maintained a strong connection to her alma mater and formed a bond with OSU College of Education Dean Sam Stern, who had embarked on an ambitious, and some said, impossible journey to raise money for the restoration of Education Hall.

Bill Furman, Joyce’s husband, said his wife had made a gift toward the restoration of the building during the early stages of the effort and was extremely supportive of Stern and his commitment to the project, even taking the time to call him with words of encouragement.

In fact, it was Stern’s belief in an impossible dream that drew Furman to the project, because she was known for taking on impossible tasks and making them a reality.

“Her motto was ‘Leap and the net will appear,’” her husband said. So after Joyce’s death, Bill continued to cast an interested eye on the Education Hall project. It was Stern’s determination that finally convinced him to donate $2 million through the Joyce N. Furman Memorial Trust to help complete the building, which is currently in the throes of both a seismic upgrade and a major interior renovation. Plans are to name the building in honor of Joyce Furman, whose brother and sister also graduated from OSU.

Joyce Furman

Stern said he was privileged to get to know the Furmans during his earliest days as dean of the College of Education.

“I noticed right away the tremendous depth of Joyce’s caring for kids,” he said. “It is comprehensive. She was always thinking about the welfare of kids and all the different ways in which they can grow.

“I am thrilled that education at OSU will be associated with Joyce and Bill Furman,” Stern added. “It’s more than just the building, it’s about aligning our college with a deep commitment to kids and their education.”

An iconic structure at the campus’s east entrance, the renovated hall will blend historic charm with high-tech touches. The exterior seismic upgrades are being funded by the state, and the interior renovations are being funded by a combination of private donations and university funds.

Bill said Joyce was a passionate advocate for OSU, giving both time and money to a variety of causes on campus. She served on the steering committee for The Campaign for OSU and often brought Bill down from their home in Portland to attend football games, even getting him to wear orange sweaters after he lost a bet to her. He was fascinated with the old stone building where Joyce had taken her education courses.

“It became my school, whether I wanted that to happen or not,” Furman said, himself a graduate of Washington State University and now President and CEO of The Greenbrier Companies headquartered in Lake Oswego, Ore.

Joyce, who was a teacher and IBM systems analyst before meeting Bill, eventually became a full-time volunteer and philanthropist, devoting much of her life to the causes that pulled at her heart, including New Avenues for Youth, an organization which she co-founded to provide services to Portland’s homeless youth.

In addition to supporting the renovation of Education Hall, the Furman Trust has donated $500,000 to the OSU President’s Fund for Cultural Centers and $200,000 to a collaborative program between the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Oregon Humane Society. Earlier gifts from the Furmans supported a classroom in Education Hall, the Austin Entrepreneurship Program, and programs in the College of Liberal Arts.

The recent $2 million gift is part of The Campaign for OSU, the university’s first comprehensive fundraising initiative. Guided by OSU’s strategic plan, the campaign seeks $850 million to provide opportunities for students, strengthen the Oregon economy and conduct research that changes the world. More than $681 million has been committed to date.

~ Theresa Hogue

Workers strip stones off the face of Education Hall earlier this year as part of a renovation project. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Education Hall looks oddly bare these days, like a genteel old woman caught in the garden in her corset and bloomers. What for years has been a building encased in chain-link fence to keep falling stone from hitting passersby has not only lost the fencing, but the stone it was encasing. Now, from the second floor up, the building appears to be little more than support beams and plastic sheeting covered by the shell of a roof.

However, there’s more to the building than currently meets the eye. Although the crumbling sandstone is now being carted away and recycled, the building’s cement floors and interior walls remain, and workers are busy transforming the space into a state-of –the-art collection of classrooms, conference spaces and offices which will give the century-old building a brand new feel.

College of Education Dean Sam Stern and his faculty are currently housed in Waldo Hall while construction is taking place. He knows that the odd looking process is raising some questions on campus.

“We’re taking apart a building and it seems really strange,” Stern said with a laugh.

The elegant west entrance to Education Hall is remaining intact. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

The renovation of Education Hall, which started out as a seismic upgrade but which has expanded into a transformation of the entire building, will become a centerpiece for the entrance to campus, blending historic charm with high tech touches. The exterior seismic upgrades are being funded by the state, and the interior renovations are being funded by a combination of private donations and university funds.

The originally 40,000 square-foot building cost $40,000 to construct. The current seismic renovation project totals $12.5 million and the interior renovation is expected to cost between $5 and $7 million. But to renovate the historic building costs about half what it would to raze the building and put up a brand new hall in its place, said Matt Norman, project manager with Fortis Construction Inc. of Portland. And reusing the existing building makes sense from an environmental perspective as well, he said.

Originally built in 1902, the building first housed the College of Agriculture, and later the College of Science, and among its claims to fame, it was where Nobel Prize-winning chemist and peace activist Linus Pauling met his future wife while he was teaching a class.

Two fires gutted the interior of the building in the 1930s, leaving the exterior sandstone shell standing. The second time the interior was rebuilt, construction crews made concrete walls to prevent future fire destruction. But in doing that, they did not adequately attach them to the exterior walls, leaving the exterior stones dangerously vulnerable to tumbling down during an earthquake.

It didn’t help that the sandstone used on the building had a high clay content, making it particularly porous. Add to that the fact that the original builders installed the blocks in the wrong direction, allowing water to collect rather than run off.

The stone on the outside is being replaced, but the placement of the original windows will remain the same.

The building’s first floor stones remain. Builders believe those stones are basalt or diorite, and they’ll be reinforced with metal bars and attached to shotcrete interior walls. The missing sandstone will be replaced with freshly quarried limestone from Indiana, and will look quite similar to the way Education Hall looked when it was first built. In fact, Norman said they hired a Corvallis company, Devco Engineering, to laser map the entire exterior of the building before they removed the stones, and create a 3-D model of the building. That model is being used to cut the stones in the exact same way as the original stones, in order to replicate the exterior. It’s the first time that Fortis has used such a process on campus.

“There are two types of stone on the building,” explained Larrie Easterly, University Engineering Manager. “There is field stone and custom pieces. Those special pieces will be cut exactly the same size, and the field stones will be slightly different.”

The bigger field stone pieces will be slightly smaller than the sandstone ones quarried at the turn of last century. But the overall effect will strongly resemble the original exterior. The new roof will also mimic the original roofing, which was red (the current roof is greenish-gray), and a copper finial which once adorned the turret at the front of the building will be recreated based on archival photographs.

A worker walks through the interior of Education Hall during the renovation project. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Inside, airy design, lots of natural light, and much needed classroom space will transform the interior from a dark and slightly labyrinthine space to something much more modern. The building will be upgraded to ADA standards and now have men’s and women’s bathrooms on all floors.

“The first floor is about 75 percent university classroom space,” Stern said. “Those university classrooms are really needed.”

The first and second floor work should be complete by fall term, and by winter term, the third and fourth floors are expected to be finished. Most of the College of Education staff should be move into the building by Spring Term at the latest. Their newly refurbished home will be done just as the college is heading in a new direction, with a strong focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and cultural and linguistic diversity.

Plastic sheeting forms a temporary wall inside Education Hall. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

The building will be LEED certified-equivalent, and much more efficient with new insulation, water saving fixtures, and a dependence on natural lighting. And the renovation will be nearly waste-free.

“We’re emphasizing reuse and recycling,” Norman said. “We’re recycling 99.9 percent of the building materials and avoiding putting things in the landfill.”

Recycled materials also will used in the new construction, including recycled fiber carpets. And stone benches will adorn the east side of the building, made out of some of the sandstone removed from the walls.

“It will look great when it’s done,” Easterly said.

Norman agreed. “It will be fantastic.”

~ Theresa Hogue