The Paul Miller Research Complex, known among students as the farm near campus often used by Animal Science students, will be getting a facelift in 2014.
The facility is a mile from campus on Spear Street.
It encompasses the UVM cow barn, which is used as a classroom and research facility by faculty and students.
A student-run dairy herd, the Cooperative for Real Education in Agricultural Management (CREAM), and the Ellen A. Hardacre Equine Center are also housed by the facility.
The buildings in the research complex, which were meant to last 20 to 25 years, were built in the early 1960s, Josie Davis, the Associate Dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said.
“The structures aren’t falling down around us, but they’re not in the best of shape,” she said.
One of the main reasons for the reconstruction is that cows were smaller in the 1960s, and now the cows are longer than the stalls, Davis said.
“We are also building a new barn because the CREAM barn does not have a lot of space between the cows,” she said. “It’s not the safest, and a new barn will allow for more room for students and other people to move around easier and not put themselves or the animal in danger.”
Throughout the school year, these CREAM students milk cows, clean stalls, run the farm’s business and take care of the Holstein and Jersey cows who produce milk, reported the Cynic on March 22, 2010.
The current barn does not have a milking parlor, and the current milking system is not as efficient and takes more time to use.
This new facility would also allow the barn to become more energy efficient, Davis said.
“The new barn will have a central parlor for CREAM and research with an elevated platform for the public to see inside,” she said. “A new research barn will be off to the side and not central so that the research can be conducted without interference from the public.”
Currently, the project is expected to break ground in late spring 2014.
Although there is no set date yet, the plans for the new barns are still being made.
It is estimated that this first phase of the project, which includes the new CREAM barn, new research barn and new milking parlor, will cost an estimated $1.8 million, she said.
The board of trustees approved this project in November, and the project will be completed using grant money.
In the future there would be plans to further renovate some of the existing structures at the farm, but that will be done at a later date, Davis said.
“I’m excited for the students, department and teachers to have this new facility,” she said.
Some Animal Science students that participate in CREAM share Davis’s enthusiasm for the new barn and agreed with the need for it to be redone.
“The new barn is definitely necessary,” senior Christa Finley said. “The milking system was sometimes problematic and finicky when I was in CREAM over the summer.”
Current CREAM member Meredith Chamberlain said that she and other participants in the program are excited about the new barn.
“This is the 25th anniversary of the program and it is nice to know we are part of something much bigger than ourselves and this is a program that is here to stay.”
Building this new barn will get the University back in touch with its agricultral beginnings, Chamberlain also said.
“This new barn, to me, represents our university, whose full name is the University of Vermont and State Agriculture College, and is acknowledging its roots and promising UVM’s influence and continued activism in the dairy community and world of agriculture education,” she said.
