A new grant worth more than half a million dollars will fund renovations at Carroll College’s Simperman Hall this summer, as six laboratories are upgraded to expand resources for biology students, increase undergraduate research opportunities and build the foundation for a proposed new degree program in biochemistry and molecular biology.

Carroll College officials this week announced the receipt of the $522,000 grant from the Reno, Nev.-based E.L. Wiegand Foundation. The renovated labs will be known as the E.L. Wiegand Undergraduate Research Center.

“We try very hard at Carroll to be as close to the cutting edge as we can … and this is tremendously significant for us,” Academic Dean Jerry Berberet said. “It will help us meet our standard of quality.”

Wiegand was a researcher and inventor who focused his intellectual energies on electricity. He secured more than 100 patents in his lifetime, including the electric stovetop burner.

He was a devout Catholic with a strong work ethic and keen sense of intellectual curiosity, so Carroll College — a Catholic institution with a strong reputation in academics — fits into the foundation’s mission.

“Carroll College is an example of excellence in action,” Wiegand Foundation Director Kristen Avansino said. “When one looks at the horizon of fine Catholic institutions in the West who have proven their prowess on so many levels, Carroll College often rises to the top.

“Excellence breeds more of the same,” she added.

The foundation has given the school other grants over the past decade to fund projects related to science education and research.

The renovated labs will have the capability to allow students to explore biology on the molecular and cellular level, on the forefront of modern research, Berberet said.

The labs haven’t been renovated since their construction in 1957, biology professor Grant Hokit said.

“Although they’re fine for some of the things we do … they don’t have the facilities to do modern biology,” he said.

The upgrades will provide more space for current biology students to complete their coursework and expand their chances to research and perhaps publish articles as undergraduate students, Hokit said.

Next fall, the college will consider creating a new degree program for molecular biology and biochemistry, “what we consider to be a truly modern, integrated science program,” he said.

Reporter Larry Kline: 447-4075 or larry.kline@helenair.com