Our Facilities
Opened in 2018, the Belknap Academics Building (BAB) features innovative, active learning classrooms while incorporating state-of-the-art technology to help improve student interaction and collaboration. The building is also home to REACH, the university’s centralized academic support unit for undergraduate students.
The Duthie Center is home to the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, the Office of Cooperative Education & Career Services, and three classrooms. Hagerty Commons is a favorite gathering area for students to study, meet classmates to enjoy a quick meal at the Sandwich Shack or collaborate in one of the three small group meeting rooms.
The Engineering Garage (EG) is located at 1960 Arthur St. on the northeast side of Belknap Campus. The EG is a large makerspace style facility that consists of two classrooms, open-concept workshop area to promote collaboration flanked by team cages and equipment that students have access to.
The EG is adjacent to the Additive Manufacturing Institute of Science & Technology II, formerly known as the AMCC, and GE’s firstBuild.
The Department of Chemical Engineering is housed in Ernst Hall. Speed School’s largest auditorium-style classroom is located on the first floor, along with the ChE departmental office, faculty offices, and conference rooms. Additional classrooms, faculty offices and labs are located on the second and third floors of Ernst Hall.
JB Speed is a 40,774 sq. ft. building dedicated to engineering administration, advising, support services, and academic instruction. The Department of Engineering Fundamentals and the Department of Industrial Engineering located on the first and third floors respectively with the admissions office and dean’s suite on the second floor.
Named in honor of Paul C. Lutz, university benefactor and long-time engineering graphics professor at Speed School was constructed in 1995 and consists of classroom space, engineering faculty offices and lab, home to Speed School’s Department of Bioengineering while also serving as home to Arts & Sciences departments of Anthropology, Geography/Geosciences and Sociology.
Built in 1948, Sackett Hall is home to the department of Mechanical Engineering, classrooms, laboratories, and faculty offices.
Sackett Hall is named in honor of Frederic Sackett, U.S. Senator from Kentucky, US ambassador to Germany, and son-in-law of James Breckinridge Speed.
Centrally located on UofL’s Belknap Campus, the Shumaker Research Building (SRB) features the Micro/Nano Technology Center, a class 100/1000 $30 million 10,000 ft2 cleanroom facility with SEM imaging, characterization and packaging capabilities. Other areas of the SRB include research facilities, laboratories, offices and conference spaces.
Built in 2005, the SRB is named for John W. Shumaker, the 16th president of the University of Louisville.
The departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering reside in WS Speed Hall. Classrooms, departmental and faculty offices, along with research laboratories fill up the 39,500+ sq. ft. building constructed in 1957.
The Henry Vogt Building is home to Vogt Engineering, Additive Manufacturing Institute of Science and Technology (AMIST), Speed School Business Center, and Engineering Technology Solutions.
Engineering Garage
The Engineering Garage is not your Dad’s garage. It’s a creative, spacious, open-concept makerspace with two classrooms and a workshop area flanked by team cages and equipment for student use. It’s a space that invites collaboration and inspiration.
Landmarks
An imposing shiny black granite sculpture entitled Integrity has stood vigil upon its foundation in front of the J.B. Speed School of Engineering building for the last 10 years. But for 95 years, since Speed School’s inception, the value of integrity has always been a rock-solid foundation for the engineers there.
In fact, ethics in engineering was the original inspiration for the late Bernie Dahlem, the Speed School alumnus who gifted the statue. According to Larry Tyler, Speed School Professor of Engineering Fundamentals, it was an editorial that sparked the idea that led to the sculpture’s fabrication.
In the Spring 2004 issue of the BENT, the magazine of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, then-Tau Beta Pi CEO Jim Froula, had written an editorial “A Matter of Ethics,” a topic that resonated with and caught the attention of alumnus Bernie Dahlem, who said he believed “integrity was sorely lacking in today’s world.” So moved by Froula’s words, Dahlem proposed the creation of a monument to then-Dean of Speed School Mickey Wilhelm to serve as a daily reminder for engineers to exercise integrity in their studies and future careers.
The sculpture Integrity is a physical fabrication of “The Bent,” designed after the trestle, the load-bearing part of a bridge, and represents the official emblem of Tau Beta Pi, and stands for the principle of integrity and excellence in engineering. The one-of-a-kind sculpture, completed and dedicated in 2009, was hand carved from Indian black granite, and measures more than six feet wide, eight feet tall, and weighs more than 21,000 lbs.
Etched on the opposite side of the sculpture are words suggested by Bernie Dahlem from the Eligibility Code of Tau Beta Pi. Dahlem intended the words not only as a visible daily reminder, but to inspire graduating engineers as the last thing they will see as they walk down the steps of Speed School from academia into professional life. It reads:
We consider that integrity is the sine qua non for membership in Tau Beta Pi; that it transcends in importance scholarship, activity and every other qualification. Without private and public integrity, we believe that no organization is worthy of existence. Under integrity, we include honor and high standards of truth and justice.
From Bernie Dahlem’s vision in 2014 to bringing the project to fruition took five years and a virtual “village” of engineers and related professionals. Geoffrey Atherton, an architectural designer with UofL’s Office of Planning, Design and Construction, designed the sculpture, with Cubist abstract influences in mind. An artist at heart, Atherton said he believes that engineering is art, and he was thrilled to play a creative role in the project. “Art is my passion and it was tremendously exciting for me. To have an opportunity to do something with my ideas for this was amazing,” he said.
In addition to the original vision of Dahlem and creative artistry of Atherton, J.P. Mohsen and Mark McGinley of the civil engineering faculty helped with the design work, and were aided by the valuable contributions of Tim Gornet, Joe Vicars and Damon Stacy from Additive Manufacturing Institute of Science and Technology (AMIST), who developed a 3-D model to better visualize and analyze the design.
After considering numerous different materials, project leaders determined that granite was the most workable material for the statue and contacted Terry Fewell of Fewell Monument Co., in Scottsburg, Indiana.
Atherton and Fewell worked with a group in India to get the granite cut and shipped. Fewell Monument assembled the piece in Scottsburg and then installed it, using a special ice process — that was itself a minor feat in engineering.
“Because of the enormous weight of the art — 6.5 tons — it needed to be lowered very slowly into place so the pins and holes would line up,” explained Atherton.
To do this, Fewell Monument positioned the sculpture on a large piece of dry ice, which is frozen carbon dioxide. It doesn’t melt, but goes straight from solid form to gas, and as the dry ice turned to gas, the sculpture slowly lowered onto the base.
The teamwork of the entire sculpture project was paid for through donations, anchored by a large gift from Dahlem. Brasch-Barry General Contractors, which 1971 Speed grad John Brasch owns, donated and installed the brick sidewalk around the sculpture. Henderson Services, owned by 1973 Speed alumnus Bruce Henderson and 1969 UofL business graduate Rodney Henderson, donated the lighting.
“The value of integrity is enmeshed in every part of the Speed School academic experience,” said current Speed School Dean Emmanuel Collins. “There could be no more fitting name and message for this monument that our students see every day,” he said.
Bernie Dahlem
Bernie Dahlem, who died in 2018, gifted more than $2 million to UofL Speed School over his lifetime. He obtained his BS in Civil Engineering In 1951, and MS in Civil Engineering in 1972 from UofL. He was a member of Board of Overseers and past president of Speed School Alumni Foundation. He received SS’s Professional Award for Engineering and was recognized for career accomplishment with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1988, and was honored by UofL with an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 1996. In 1994, he made a $1 million gift to Speed School to establish the Dr. John E. Heer, Jr. Faculty Scholar Fund. Bernie credited Dr. Heer for having a great influence on his life.