The Board of Trustees approved a request to sell the former Marine Biological Laboratory in the Noank section of Groton and gave final approval for a new major in computer engineering, at a meeting Tuesday at the School of Law.

The 92-year-old marine sciences property, located on the water in the historic section of Noank, is in extremely poor condition, according to Dale Dreyfuss, vice chancellor for business and administration, and has been used recently only for anchoring the University's research vessel R/V UCONN. That ship has been replaced by the R/V CONNECTICUT, which was designed to fit docking space at the Avery Point campus. Additionally, all research activity is now conducted at Avery Point. With the new boat slip, and the new Marine Sciences Institute being constructed at Avery Point, Dreyfuss said, the Noank building has become unnecessary.

The engineering major, to be offered jointly by the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering and the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will emphasize real-time computing systems, computing device fabrication and integration, and computer and communication networks. It is necessary, Erling Murtha-Smith, associate dean of engineering, told the trustees, because current accreditation standards for the computer science and engineering program allow little flexibility in programming, and the electrical and systems engineering program focuses on systems engineering and electronic and photonic devices and materials.

Also during the meeting, Tom Terry, associate professor of molecular and cell biology, and Bruce Koeppen, dean of academic affairs and education at the Health Center, received citations from the trustees for their teaching.

Richard Veilleux