An Inside Look Into the New Petroleum Engineering Research Building

Video by Blake Silverthorn

The New Petroleum Engineering Building

doublet-entrance-400When entering the new Terry Fuller Petroleum Engineering Research Building, you first notice the Double T on the floor, but then you notice how the entrance hall tells the story of petroleum engineering.

Visitors cannot miss the wall to the right that resembles geological layers in the Earth and symbolizes the evolution of how engineers have drilled holes for natural resource extraction since the 1940s.geologic-wall-400

Double doors on the wall lead to the building’s large lecture hall that can seat up to 156 students.

Behind the podium, a  large screen is placed on the wall. The screen is made up of smaller square monitors. The monitors use laser technology to project an image.

Watson, PhD

Marshall Watson

“It reduces the heat load into the building, and it also is more energy efficient, the lasers are, as opposed to LCD TVs,” said Marshall Watson, Ph.D., the chairman of the petroleum engineering department. “It does not have fans, so there is no need for cooling.”

Watson said the Audio/Visual system in the room cost $500,000. A smaller lecture room on the second floor will have the same system.laser-screen-400

A big, blue “Christmas tree” is displayed in the right window of the main hall. However, this tree is not meant for twinkling lights, ornaments and presents. The decoration metal structure is actually a well topper used to control the flow of natural resources.xmas-topper2-400

An oil pumping unit was placed in the window on the other side of the room last Tuesday. Watson said a Tech petroleum engineer alumnus donated the small unit that cost around $20,000 to $30,000.

Graduate and professor research laboratories occupy the bottom left of the building. Watson said the equipment will not be moved to the new building until the summer.

Watson said graduate and undergraduate work was done in the same rooms in their old building.oil-pumping-unit-400

“It was a safety issue,” Watson said. “They were stumbling over each other, you know, equipment missing and moved, and it was a real disaster. This way the graduates have their own area, and the undergraduates have their own are to conduct all their research, and that way they’re not walking all over each other.”

Professors currently teach undergraduates in labs, but the new building will have a separate instruction area in the labs where professors use advanced technology to teach concepts and demonstrate lab activities using projected images.

The building also has an area on the first floor where food kiosks will be located with seating nearby.

The room on the second floor that overlooks the entrance hall is a geologic work room. A special touch screen will allow students to see the models they create, and it will have 3-D capabilities.

student-study-lounge-400The second floor will also contain a large collaboration room. This room will also contain a 3-D monitor, and it will have flat screen televisions for students to work on group projects.

The second floor features a student study lounge. The lounge contains work rooms for group work, each features flatscreen television technology. There will also be collaboration rooms where the teaching assistants can meet with their students for private sessions.

About the Building

The new Terry Fuller Petroleum Engineering Research Building, located in the northeast corner of the engineering key, was funded solely by private donations from alumni and corporations.entrance-hall2-400

According to the petroleum engineering website, the facility cost $22.8 milion.

Terry Fuller and his wife, as well as an original endowment from Bob L. Herd, were major contributors. Tech said in a news release Wednesday that Michael Herd, president of the Bob L. Herd Foundation and grandson of Bob L. Herd, donated $1 million for a laboratory with his namesake.

Petroleum companies such as Chevron Corporation, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Apache Corporation also donated funds to build laboratories in their names.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, also known as Oxy, has also donated $1.5 million.

Watson said some aspects of the building have yet to be completed because the department is still trying to collect funds. They will complete what they can with the money they have, he said.

When designing the building, Watson said he visited several petroleum engineering schools at other universities such as the University of Tulsa, Colorado School of Mines, Louisiana State University, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin.

“I said, ‘OK, if you would build a building, you know, what would you do? If you had your Christmas list, basically, what would you ask for?”

“I said, ‘OK, if you would build a building, you know, what would you do? If you had your Christmas list, basically, what would you ask for?’ Not only that, I looked at what they already had, and each area had their bright spots of things that were unique to them, and what I tried to do was take all the best from all the universities and bring them back here to Texas Tech.”

Watson said he and Dean Al Sacco Jr. wanted to create a learning atmosphere that goes past book knowledge.

He said he hopes at least two of the classrooms will be ready to use by March 3 because he would like for his seniors to spend at least a couple of months in the new building.

According to the petroleum engineering website, the building’s ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on Thursday, Feb. 27, at 4:30 p.m.

A Tuesday Texas Tech University press release said the ceremony will take place in the new building’s lobby. Chancellor Kent Hance, President Duane Nellis and Dean Al Sacco will among those who will make remarks, before donors and Tech system officials cut the ribbon.

Problems the Department Faces

Watson said their department has too many students and not enough professors.

“Texas Tech, right now, has the largest undergraduate enrollment than any school in the world in petroleum engineering.”

“Texas Tech, right now, has the largest undergraduate enrollment than any school in the world in petroleum engineering,” Watson said.

Watson said other schools, such as Texas A&M, may have 25 to 30 professors and can restrict enrollment to around 800 students, but Tech only has eight professors for around 1,000 students.

“We’re really struggling to manage research, graduate students and teach a full load of undergraduate courses.”

“We’re really struggling to manage research, graduate students and teach a full load of undergraduate courses,” Watson said.

Watson said this problem is caused by the university’s desire to increase enrollment contrasting with the department’s ability to equal the industry’s pay grade.

“My students make as much as my professors when they get out of school.”

“We’re all hurting from lack of professors because, you know, why would you want to take a professor’s salary when you literally can make three times that much, three times the salary in the industry, or more,” Watson said. “My students make as much as my professors when they get out of school.”

Even though the department is struggling to recruit professors, he said, he cannot restrict enrollment because Tech has a growth environment, and petroleum engineering is a large contributor to the goal of 40,000 students by 2020.

In the early 2000s, he said, the department used to have around 12 students per graduation, but now it has more than 100 students per graduation class.

His sophomore class he teaches is so big, he said, that he will still have to teach it in two different rooms at the same time when he moves the class over to the new building.

Watson said the student-to-faculty ratio is around 125 students per professor.

“It’s the worst on campus by two-, three-fold,”

“It’s the worst on campus by two-, three-fold,” Watson said.

Watson said he just hired two new Ph.D. students from the University of Texas at Austin and Tulsa, but they do not have actual experience, which presents another problem. He said people really need 10 years of work experience in the field to be an efficient petroleum engineering professor. So, he is trying to figure out how to give the new recruits enough experience to teach undergraduate students.

About Alicia Keene

Graduate Executive Director
Alicia Keene is a dual master's student from Austin, Texas studying mass communication and business. One day, she hopes to work for a prominent news publication in a major city as either a reporter or producer.