The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Deferred Maintenance Mounts During Budget Crisis

Missouri’s college campuses look good from the outside, but within are cramped classrooms, deteriorating walls and outdated lab equipment, according to a state report out this week. Reviewers found aging plumbing and electrical systems, elevators that no longer meet code and inefficient heating and cooling systems. They even found safety problems such as overloaded electrical systems and compromised brick facades. The report did not place a dollar value on the total amount of deferred maintenance. But the report concluded that every public higher education institution in the state, especially community colleges, has delayed building maintenance projects because of a lack of money. Read more at:
http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/1625823.html

CUNY To Rebuild At Ground Zero

Officials broke ground Tuesday on a replacement for a college building that sat empty for years after a World Trade Center tower collapsed into it on Sept. 11, leaving it damaged beyond repair. Fiterman Hall, a City University of New York classroom building, was finally torn down for good just before Thanksgiving, a year after its demolition and cleanup of toxic waste began. The new 14-story building will go up at the same site north of ground zero, with 96 classrooms plus office space, an art gallery and meeting rooms. Read more at:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsMWFqclEuOiOzudD9z5ci6OLugwD9CAQBJO1

IHEs Exploring New And Cheaper Real Estate Options

As the recession prompts many adults, some jobless, to return to school, including community colleges and technical institutes, commercial real estate professionals said schools were expanding into former offices as well as theaters. Mr. Zelner said schools, which are on fixed budgets determined by tuition, typically paid about $25 to $50 a square foot annually. Two Herald Square offers a “building within a building” layout, where the ASA Institute’s students will have a private entrance, lobby and elevator bank, he said. That’s critical for colleges and institutes, which frequently hold classes six or seven days a week, often from early morning until late at night, he said. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/business/23school.html?_r=1

Economic Crisis Causing Delays In Campus Construction

Harvard University, Lesley University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - all of them significant taxpayers, land owners, and employers in Cambridge - came before the Cambridge Planning Board last Tuesday night to talk about the future of their institutions and how the downturn in the economy has affected their planning and development initiatives. Representatives from the three schools said the current economic crisis has prompted much closer scrutiny of all planning and development, but so far, it has not specifically derailed projects already in the works. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/08/universities_building_but_warily/

Recession Not Slowing Down Construction At Some IHEs

An army of ironworkers, masons, carpenters and laborers are swarming the campus of the University of Michigan these days, as the university undertakes a construction campaign budgeted at $2.5 billion, ranking it among the largest university building programs in the United States. Indeed, college campuses have emerged this decade as important centers of building design and construction. As in Michigan’s case, university construction programs are often the largest capital projects in their states. University administrators here and in other states say the burst of construction, which began at the start of the decade and accelerated in recent years, has enabled campuses to catch up with years of deferred maintenance. Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/realestate/commercial/31michigan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

New Gyms And Pools Help Lure Top Athletes To Division III Schools

Gettysburg College is proud of its liberal-arts program and commitment to community service, but it can't help envying the eye-popping Olympic-size swimming pool belonging to its academic and athletic rival, Franklin & Marshall College. The tricked-out gym is the latest for the small but prosperous Centennial Conference, 11 well-regarded Division III colleges that focus far more on academics than athletics. With no athletic scholarships to hand out, the schools hope to lure top players, as well as nonathletes who have come to expect high-end amenities, with everything from dormitory suites to well-appointed gyms. Read more at: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20080721_Colleges__outsize_gym_ambitions.html

Academic Sprawl Can Damage Town-Gown Relationship

Right now the city's higher-education scene is whirling with 2,901 dormitory beds under construction and roughly 2,000 more under review or proposed. Residents of neighborhoods where colleges are expanding are understandably dizzy from all of the activity. Colleges will need to reach a state of detente with neighbors if they hope to see building and occupancy permits from the city. Colleges could fill tomes with their volunteer and community service efforts. But the quality of town-gown relations usually depends upon student behavior. Read more at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/01/07/academic_sprawl/

Columbia Decides To Toss Its Atom Smasher

Columbia University has decided to junk a 70-year-old atom smasher that is the nation’s oldest artifact of the nuclear era, ending weeks of internal debate and lobbying over its fate. Starting this fall, a loose coalition of preservationists at Columbia argued that the machine represented a link to the earliest days of the nuclear era and should not simply be discarded. But university officials questioned some claims about the machine, and said its space was needed for expansion, despite Columbia’s $7 billion plan to enlarge its campus over the next 25 years. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/nyregion/20atom.html?ex=1355806800&en=b8507eeb75a16101&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Can IHEs Afford Their Current Construction Boom

The dynamic expansion plan, lubricated with easy access to capital, is hardly unusual on America's gleaming campuses. Take two spectacular examples, both of which are reshaping metropolitan Boston. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has already added many acres of new laboratory and study space in a $1 billion expansion programme, including its curvy, $300m Stata Centre, pictured above. And over the next 50 years Harvard University is going to construct a brand new campus on a 200-acre swathe of Boston it conveniently owns. America's colleges and universities completed $15 billion worth of building in 2006—an astonishing 260% increase since 1997. But with university fees already exorbitant, how can America's universities justify their building binge? Read more at:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10216515

IHEs Are Going Green But Some Opportunities Are Missed

At Duke University's new French Family Science Center, the urinals are waterless, the carpet recycled, the roofs green with plants. The $115 million building has a Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council -- one of 18 Duke projects headed for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design stamp of approval. Duke said in 2003 it would aim for all new buildings to be green certified. Not all North Carolina colleges and universities have gone that far. Some have begun to embrace greener living with composting, biodiesel fuels, solar energy and locally grown food in the cafeteria. But it can be an expensive proposition, and there have been missed opportunities. Read more at:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/higher_education/story/770672.html