The Coonley Lounge is one of the most beloved and important meeting places on campus. It is here that students and faculty meet to exchange gossip, hold office hours, review lab presentations, discuss important topics in chemical engineering and the world, and to just eat lunch or partake in refreshments before department seminars. The lounge also serves as our main venue to host visitors. We have held alumni events there for homecoming and have hosted faculty lunches with seminar speakers, our industrial advisory council, our undergraduate students during study days, and most importantly, prospective graduate students visiting the Department and RPI.
In its current incarnation, the lounge is about 35 years old, but it has served a number of purposes in the past. When the Ricketts Building was first erected, a portion of the lounge was an apartment for the building caretaker. As the Institute expanded, the apartment and adjoining spaces made way for laboratory space. For many years, this was the fiefdom of Hendrick Van Ness and was dedicated to the study of chemical thermodynamics.
By the time I arrived in 1988, Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering were a joint department. The lab space had been replaced by a common secretarial pool. At the heart of the space sat Rose Primett and the mighty CPT word processor. In the days before personal computers and laser printers, the CPT included a 4 ft long, dual-head printer that was the only device capable of rendering text (Greek and English), mathematical symbols, and equations.
Within a few years, internal divisions between the two halves of the department led to Environmental Engineering splitting off and moving out of Ricketts. With so much additional office space available, the secretarial pool was no longer needed, the support staff could have their own office spaces, and a new, gathering place was proposed, to be named after the long serving department head, Lewis Selkirk Coonley. A gift from Prof. Van Ness assisted with the renovation of the space and the purchase of all the furniture required to make it into a gathering place. As the Institute evolved, so did the Coonley Lounge. Ethernet and Wi-Fi access arrived as RPI required all students to have personal laptops. Display cases were established to highlight student and faculty achievements, especially the winners of the Coonley Prize for best process design. White boards and a large-screen television were installed to publicize Department and Institute events as well as to assist with office hours and student presentation reviews. As the Ricketts building infrastructure aged and the Institute made initial plans to renovate the building for a burgeoning computer science, the overwhelming concern of students and faculty was that wherever our Department found itself next, it must include a replica of the Coonley Lounge space ringed by faculty offices.
My favorite memories of the Coonley Lounge were all the "philosophical" discussions the faculty would have when we found ourselves needing a break. The topics included research trends, educational techniques, curriculum modifications, current events and the shortcomings of the Administration that had moved, uncomfortably close to us, to the Troy Building. Howard Littman, our in-house historian, generally led these conversations, but the most memorable discussions were always the ones that piqued Bruce Nauman's interest. Just as we would reach some kind of consensus, you could rely on Bruce to join in and express a polar opposite view. As a young professor, it was hard to figure out exactly what Bruce truly believed, but as I look back on it now, the one thing he did believe in was diversity of opinion and the joy that came from occasionally being able to raise people's blood pressure a bit. The spirits of past faculty, staff and students still inhabit the lounge and keep it as a welcoming place for all.
The Coonley Lounge is our favorite place
A campus oasis for a change of pace.
While its existence was borne of serendipity,
We believe it must exist in perpetuity
