When baby boomers began entering college during the 1960s, more space was needed on campuses to accommodate hordes of new students.

And during that time, about 8 million square feet and nearly a third of the buildings on MSU’s campus were constructed.

University engineer Robert Nestle said despite some buildings undergoing extensive renovations or even being destroyed, the majority of buildings on campus can remain useful with updates.

“Buildings tend to be updated and renovated as needs change,” he said. “For instance, buildings built in the ‘60s had no data wiring, but those buildings have all been wired over the course of the years to remain functional.”

Some of the buildings remaining on campus built during the 1960s include the Administration Building and Baker, Holden and Wells halls.

Nestle said most renovations of buildings deal with specific elements that certain colleges within the buildings must have.

“There are a fair amount of renovations done on buildings that are precipitated by changing needs,” he said. “A program in a building can require more air-conditioning, electrical power, rearrangement of spaces or renovation of labs.”

Buildings from the 1960s that were destroyed because they were no longer functional include the Soil Sciences Building and the old Engineering Building, Nestle said.

And he said others could follow in the future, such as the Paolucci Building.

“It was originally built for home economics and the interior arrangement is kind of arranged in a sort of small apartment complex,” Nestle said. “It was designed for a very specific function and when that stopped being necessary, the complex doesn’t work for anything else and is too expensive to renovate for something else.”

That’s not a surprise to Steve Glazner, director of communications for The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers, who said the influx of students in the 1960s caused buildings to be built in haste.

“There was such an enrollment boom during the ‘60s because of the baby boomer generation that there was a huge funding of new construction on campus, and unfortunately a lot of those were not well-made, so they had a shorter useful lifetime and life cycle than most university buildings are built for,” he said.

Dennis Anderson, president of Ralph Calder & Associates, Inc., a company responsible for constructing many buildings on Michigan college campuses in the 1960s, said the buildings built by the company still stand strong.

Anderson said at least 60 buildings on MSU’s campus were built by the group. Buildings at Western Michigan University, Michigan Technological University and Northern Michigan University were also built by the company.

“The ‘60s were a period where people weren’t interested in anything being ornate, so really we went for a nice form and clean lines,” he said. “The buildings need to be maintained, and mostly we used products that would last for a long period of time, and we tried to build them so if you wanted to change the use in them, they were flexible.”

And Anderson said the buildings should have a long life - at least 50 years.

“Concrete construction is very permanent, and we put enough strength in it so you could use them for anything you want them to,” he said. “I’ve had a long career and done a lot of work on the campus. I’ve enjoyed it and I’m very pleased with the results.”