Education
Right:
The Robinson Building at North Carolina Central
University in Durham is one of many in the UNC system
where students and teachers suffer from overcrowding. The
Robinson, Lee Science and Hubbard buildings at NCCU are
earmarked to be replaced at a total cost of $36.7
million. Below: N.C. State's Class of
2000, in graduation ceremonies in May at the
Entertainment and Sports Arena.
Campuses
at
a Crossroads
Overcrowded
and in need of a major financial infusion,
N.C. colleges hope voters approve a huge bond issue
How failing schools are learning to
succeed
Low-wealth schools suit enters its sixth
year
By Edward Martin
A quarter of a century has been kind
to Lynda Jordan. In that time she graduated from North
Carolina A&T University, earned a doctorate from MIT, and returned
to teach chemistry in the same labs on the leafy
Greensboro campus where she first studied in the 1970s.
"We still don't have air conditioning, but back then
there was ventilation and the fume hoods worked,"
explains Jordan. "We had dedicated faculty and we
got a quality education."
Today, at Hines Hall, where half of the university's
7,500 students take one or more courses before
graduating, sweaty palms still aren't due entirely to the
heat as freshmen confront the strange smells and amber
chemicals of lab classes.
But now the paint peels and sinks leak. Rust stains and
corrosion eat into ventilation hoods over work stations,
and last fall, a student performing an experiment at one
of them slumped to the floor unconscious, overcome by
fumes. "It's sad," says Jordan, "to see
what has happened to my university in 25 years."
The student recovered, but on the 75 university and
community college campuses of the state where higher
education for the citizenry was born, Hines Hall doesn't
stand alone. On the eve of a historic $3.1 billion bond
referendum to renovate 800 university and community
college buildings like it and build dozens of new ones at
schools that are overflowing or about to, campuses are at
a crossroads.
"Two centuries ago, our state took the audacious
step of beginning the nation's first public system of
higher education," says Gov. Jim Hunt. That system
today serves 900,000 citizens a year, from college
freshmen to midlife workers learning new skills.
"Those universities and community colleges are
absolutely the ticket to a bright future for our young
people and the economy of North Carolina." But Hunt,
legislative leaders and educational consultants also cite
decades of economic, social and political factors that
have resulted in deferred repairs and makeshift
accommodations for growth. That pattern borrowed from
tomorrow to get through today and now, they say, the
future rests squarely on the November ballot. "Our
reputation and the excellence of our universities has
slipped," adds Hunt. "These bonds will
determine if we're going to push back to the forefront,
or if we're going to slide into the ranks of the nation's
mediocre colleges and universities."
That's no small question. Martin Lancaster and Molly
Broad, presidents of the 59-member community college and
16-campus
university systems,
point out that the bonds won't require a tax increase,
although neither minimizes what they ask of voters.
They would nearly double state debt and set a record for
North Carolina, although historians say the amount alone
doesn't tell the whole story. In 1949, for instance,
voters approved $200 million in road bonds put forward by
Gov. W. Kerr Scott that exceeded the state's entire
annual budget. November's bonds would amount to a quarter
of the annual budget.
Economic impact has to be considered, too. Hundreds of
millions of dollars would recirculate in the state
economy, starting as early as 2001. "We've got more
than $400 million in buildings already begun or
planned," says Broad. "You'll see the system
move very quickly once the bonds are passed. Our
intention is to stage it so the smallest amount would be
expended the first year, but then ramp up gradually so
not to induce a spiral of inflation."
That, adds David Simpson, director of the building
division of the 3,500-member Carolinas Associated General
Contractors in Raleigh, could mean jobs and
recession-resistant contracts for a nervous industry.
Based on 1999 nonresidential construction of $7 billion,
the bonds would keep the state's entire
commercial-construction workforce busy for nearly six
months. "We've been chugging along furiously for
years, but from what our members tell us, things are
already trailing off some," says Simpson. "If
the voters approve, it would be nice to know there's
significant work out there anyway."
Most of all, the referendum could cap a drama that began
building when a generation came home from World War II.
"There was a tremendous growth spurt," says
James Moeser, who became chancellor of the flagship UNC
Chapel Hill in August. His new university is the state's
oldest and has some of the most pressing needs. It would
receive $499 million, eclipsing N.C. State University's
$449 million. "But many of the buildings from the
1950s and 1960s were also poorly constructed in the
rush."
That's true at most other campuses, such as N.C. State,
the largest with 28,000 students. There says Dennis
Hanck, a chemistry professor and director of laboratory
facilities, teachers are forced to alter lab programs.
"Our undergraduate chemistry building dates to the
1940s and it's relatively unchanged from the first day I
began teaching here 30 years ago," he says. "We
simply don't do experiments that generate harmful fumes.
It's not safe."
If that sounds similar to A&T, so it is. Science and
technology labs are the most outdated facilities
statewide, but a particular irony considering that N.C.
State and UNC Chapel Hill make up two corners of the
Research Triangle. Duke is the third. "At the
graduate level, we're maxed out in our capacity to do
state-of-the art research," says Broad. At UNC
Chapel Hill, "Faculty members in the school of
medicine have inadequate air-handling equipment, but if
they open the windows, they risk having pollen and other
particles ruin experiments."
Other factors have been at work, too. At A&T, where
Hines Hall was built in 1950, and other historically
black universities, remedial building in the 1960s civil
rights era resulted in hastily and poorly constructed
buildings among those most in need of renovation. As for
community colleges, Lancaster notes that the 59-campus
system itself is a product of the post-war generation,
created in the 1960s to retrain workers as technology
radically altered textile, furniture and other
industries. "A lot of our needs are based on growth
in workforce preparation," says Lancaster.
"However, about $100 million of our $600 million
would be for repair and renovations." Visit
community colleges campuses, and reasons are evident.
At Nash Community College in Rocky Mount and
Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, jagged cracks mark
classroom walls. At Durham Technical Community College,
electrical wiring dangles from collapsed ceilings. At Mayland Community College in Spruce Pine, clanking radiators
still heat a 1920s elementary school used for classes.
Some community colleges are simply overrun. About $50
million would finance a new 125-acre campus for Wake Technical Community College near Rolesville. In Mecklenburg,
where local voters have allocated millions over the years
for expansion, Central Piedmont Community College would receive $60 million for more
classrooms and facilities, with no local match required.
At the university level, Moeser, until a few weeks ago
chancellor of the University of Nebraska's Lincoln
flagship, has seen firsthand the results of campus
neglect. The 45,000-student system, about a third the
size of North Carolina's, recently committed $350 million
to upgrading campuses. On Moeser's campus alone, three
buildings were demolished and are being replaced by six
new ones.
"In terms of the physical campus, this will be the
most important issue in the last 100 years, and perhaps
the next 100," says Moeser. "Chapel Hill is one
of the most graciously beautiful campuses in the United
States, but the tragedy behind those old facades is
literally rotting floors. If we're going to be world
class, we can't teach in labs out of the last century, or
store one of the world's best musicology libraries in a
basement where leaking pipes put tremendously valuable
books and scores at risk.
Even if the needs are dramatic, however, North Carolina's
route to the November ballot hasn't been a cakewalk.
First came a pivotal report by the consulting firm of Eva
Klein & Associates Ltd. On an April day in 1999, when
the UNC Board of Governors approved it as the basis for a
plan they called Building for the New Millennium, hopes
were high. The compelling Klein report had detailed a
massive influx of 100,000 university and community
college students headed for state campuses by 2008.
In Charlotte, H.C. "Smoky" Bissell, chairman of
the UNC Charlotte trustees, sums it up. "The Eva
Klein message is clear," he says. "'They are
coming, they are coming.'" His campus, which turned
away 500 qualified students last year because of
overcrowding, is the state's newest. Unlike most, it
would devote nearly its entire $190 million to new
classrooms and labs, including a $33 million science and
technology center. Today, its 64 square feet of academic
space per student is half the national average.
But in addition to a soaring enrollments, the Klein
report focused on deteriorating buildings, concluding
that the pay-as-you go approach had shortchanged them for
decades. Hunt, on a recent morning making his way through
Raleigh traffic to the airport, had reflected on the
reasons. "Years ago, when we had biennial sessions
of the legislature, we were more conservative and put
more money into improvements on a regular basis," he
says. "When we went to annual sessions, there always
seemed to be more pressure to increase spending for other
very worthwhile purposes, such as prisons, our children
and the elderly. Our universities and community colleges
became neglected."
Only in 1993 did legislators create a permanent funding
mechanism for repairs and renovations. Concern grew. In
1997, lawmakers ordered the UNC system to draft a report.
In the spring of 1999, Broad arrived at the legislature
with a recommendation that lawmakers adopt "Building
for the New Millennium." It met a bitter and
disappointing reception. "I probably put on their
table a plan that was just too big to digest so late in
the session," she says.
Bickering and deadlock ensued. Central was whether to
call a referendum or launch the plan without one. The
stalemate turned into an embarrassment and rare political
defeat for university backers. "The art of politics
is compromise," says bond supporter Fountain Odom,
D-Mecklenburg. "We couldn't reach one." Hopes
died for another year. Spirits sagged on campuses around
the state.
At UNC Wilmington, North Carolina's third largest teacher
college, Klein projected an enrollment of 12,500 by 2008,
up from a current 9,700. At the Watson School of
Education, Kathleen Benzaquin, director of the state
teaching fellows program, read the news from her office,
a converted supply closet with a built-in counter for her
desk. Advisor to 120 future teachers, she shares the
office with two assistants, two computers and file
cabinets. "If a student has a personal problem, we
have to find somewhere else to meet," she says.
"But I don't complain. At least I've got an office.
Some of the others don't."
At N.C. State, Hanck waited too. Another year's class
would graduate, he says, entering careers in Lexus
chemistry that they learned on Motel T Ford equipment.
"They've both got engines, transmissions and
brakes," he says. "But, boy, are they
different." Missing, for example, is even basic
spectroscopic equipment to study molecules by measuring
the light they absorb. "Those things are used day
after day by practicing chemists," says Hanck.
Fayetteville State greeted the news similarly. Having already
grown by 90 percent in the 1990s, dorms were overflowing.
Last fall, says Lauren Burgess, assistant to the
chancellor, "We shoehorned 1,350 students in campus
housing meant for 1,150, but we didn't have room for the
rest." The university rented space for them in The
Villager, a local motel. Top priority in the bonds would
be a $6.8 million residence hall, but in the meantime,
for the first time in the school's more than 130 years
registration will be capped this fall.
Convinced that such pictures were worth thousands of
words in statistical reports, Broad and other university
officials urged lawmakers to see for themselves. A
special legislative tour, which included only three
non-legislators, NCCBI members Jim Broyhill, Ruth Shaw
and Paul Fulton, left jolting images. On their visit to
A&T, recalls spokeswoman Mable Scott, legislators had
a choice due to antiquated wiring - microphones or air
conditioning, but not both. At another school, adds
Broad, an instructor tearfully recounted the frustrations
of teaching in a lab where she worried about the safety
of her students.
In May, the General Assembly put the bond referendum on
the November ballot with only one dissenting vote on the
second reading and an unanimous vote on final passage.
"Three things turned it around," says Hunt.
"First, we got educated. We saw the decrepit
facilities at N.C. Central and elsewhere. Then we got
some very fine bipartisan leadership in the legislature.
And third, Phil Kirk, NCCBI and the state business
leadership gave tremendous energy and leadership in
getting people to understand the importance of higher
education."
Kirk is president of NCCBI, which is coordinating a
multi-million-dollar campaign to promote the bonds,
chaired by a dozen top business and education leaders.
Hunt and former governors Jim Martin, Jim Holshouser and
Bob Scott are honorary chairmen. Now, two months before
voters go the polls, politicians, educators and the state
business leadership are assessing not only the outlook
for the bonds, but painting a vivid picture of how they
would alter North Carolina's future.
Despite the $3.1 billion pricetag, Hunt and others say
it's a modest approach to funding. The original Klein
& Associates report recommended $6.9 billion.
"They won't fully meet all our needs, but they will
meet our most pressing needs and be a big step toward
future capital improvements," says Hunt. He adds
that he hopes "rousing" support will convince
legislatures to commit additional funds to upkeep. For
another thing, educators and elected leaders say the
bonds would dramatically remake the higher-education
landscape.
Seven upgraded and expanded small universities -
historically black Elizabeth City, N.C.
Central, A&T, Winston-Salem
State and
Fayetteville, plus rural, diverse UNC
Pembroke and
remote Western Carolina in Jackson County - will be thrust into the
mainstream as enrollment spills outward from larger
campuses.
Once facing enrollment declines and questionable futures,
the seven are now set to grow 50 percent by 2008.
"Facilities make a big difference in perception of
the quality of education people are getting,"
explains Mickey Burnim, chancellor of Elizabeth City
State. Adds Burgess, at Fayetteville State, "This
won't mean we're caught up, but we'll be more in line
with other institutions." Her school would receive
$46 million and is projected to grow from 4,300 students
now to 6,000 in 2008.
However, educators and politicians aren't taking passage
for granted. Some, says Broad, fear a disaster like
1999's Hurricane Floyd could sidetrack passage, and
others are concerned that voters in Wake and Mecklenburg,
where ballots will also carry $500 million to $1 billion
in local school and other bonds, will suffer what a
Charlotte Chamber official calls "sticker
shock." But Hunt, who holds degrees from both N.C.
State and UNC Chapel Hill, is confident. He says the costs
of not passing the bonds will be higher than passing
them.
"We're going to have strong growth and sufficient
revenue to pay them off without raising taxes," he
says. "But if we don't pass them, our economy will
sputter, and it'll be less likely we'll maintain the
momentum we already have."
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. This article first appeared
in the September 2000 issue of North Carolina magazine.
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