Designing the
Future
A bond money-fueled boom in
campus buildings
begins changing the face of higher education
By Lawrence Bivens
Most
around the country remember Nov. 8, 2000, as the day of the closest
presidential vote in U.S. history. But for many in North Carolina the
same date marks a far more decisive victory. That was when Tar Heel
voters overwhelmingly approved a $3.1 billion bond referendum in
support of the state’s public universities and community colleges.
“While the passage of the bond measure meant a lot to us (college
presidents) financially, it meant even more emotionally and
psychologically,” says John Dempsey, president of Sandhills
Community College in Pinehurst. “It said to us that our communities
overwhelmingly support the work we’re doing.”
For most students at Sandhills, one of the state’s 59 community
colleges, approval of the bond package will mean more and better space
in which to learn. For the 40 or so enrolled in the Sandhills’
culinary arts program, it was needed in order to have any space at
all. “Right now, our culinary students have to run around to
kitchens of various restaurants around the county in order to get
their work done,” Dempsey explains. But plans are under way to
construct a new building at Sandhills that will be home to the
college’s culinary students, as well as its technology programs.
More than $3.8 million of the building’s estimated $6 million will
come from state bond funds.
In all, Sandhills Community College is set to receive a total of
nearly $13.6 million. Atop Dempsey’s wish list for the funds is a
second building for the college’s Hoke Center. In additional to
serving Moore County, Sandhills’ presence in neighboring Hoke County
is growing. The college’s 300 students there are currently taught in
a downtown Raeford office building, although the first building at its
Hoke Center, financed separately, is set to open this month.
But more is needed. “Because Hoke County is growing and our programs
are growing, we’re going to need a second building there and
potentially even a third,” Dempsey says. The second building, which
will be known as the Hoke Business and Technology Center, will house
new programs the college is not currently able to offer in the county.
Among them, Dempsey says, is economic and workforce development
programs that the county, among the state’s most rural, critically
needs. The estimated price tag for the center is $1,788,125, about
half of which will come from bond funds.
“When industrial clients consider our county as a potential
relocation destination, the first thing they want to know is, Is there
qualified labor?” says Don Porter, executive director of Raeford/Hoke
Economic Development. “In the past, we could only talk about what a
tremendous asset Sandhills Community College would be for them — or
drive them over to Pinehurst. Soon, we’ll be able to point to
state-of-the-art training facilities and say, ‘These are the
resources that will support you here.’ ”
Meeting a New
Mission
In other corners of the state, bond monies are helping community
colleges cope with the physical side of new and changing demands they
must respond to. At Brunswick Community College in Supply, campus
leaders view $1.4 million worth of renovations and additions to their
Technical Trades Building as a way to address both space and
curricular challenges. In this case, nearly $473,000 in funds received
from the county’s board of commissioners got the project out to the
starting gates. The remainder will come from the bond issue.
Recent years have witnessed rapid changes in the county’s population
and economy, two trends Brunswick Community College must keep pace
with. Once a sparsely populated land with an economy based on
agriculture and tourism, Brunswick County is now a leader in growth.
The surge in its population — during the 1990s, it grew a whopping
43.5 percent, according to U.S. Census figures — has mainly been
concentrated among the ranks of retirees, a fact that has placed
intense pressures on the local homebuilding industry. Those demands
have spilled over to the college, which is doing its best to produce
enough skilled construction workers.
“We’ve been working with the local homebuilders associations on
satisfying their labor needs,” says Michael Reaves, president of
Brunswick Community College. “The high schools here maintain a
construction training program, but lacked adequate facilities.” With
builders calling for more advanced skills, the college has partnered
with the school system in offering a building trades program that will
be run out of the upgraded facility.
And there have been other curricula added to the offerings at
Brunswick Community College — made possible by the more
accommodating digs that are on the way.
“The building was designed at a time when most of our students were
learning auto mechanics, HVAC and electronics,” says Johnnie
Simpson, vice president for instruction at the college. “Today,
it’s programs like computer engineering, aquaculture, industrial
maintenance and turf maintenance.” The latter program, she explains,
is increasingly central to the plethora of new golf courses springing
up around the region.
Leaders at Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro don’t need new
facilities for turf or carpentry programs, but they are just as
excited about what the bond funds will do for their campus and their
rural county. Site preparation work is currently under way in advance
of the college’s new Arts, Civic and Technology (ACT) facility. The
64,000-square-foot building will contain a technology center and
classroom space that will support the college’s programs in
networking technology, computer studies and industrial technology. The
multi-purpose space also will house a 1,200-seat performing arts
auditorium and a large reception area. The total cost of the project
is $10.5 million, though $3 million of that amount is being raised
from private donors.
“The $3 million is basically the cost of the auditorium and
reception areas,” says Charlie Harrell, vice president for
administration at the college. “We didn’t believe it was right for
the bond money to finance that portion of the building that wasn’t
strictly a part of our educational mission.”
Edgecombe Community College recently completed $250,000 in renovation
and repairs to the roof of its Vocational Shops Building, a project
that was financed completely from bond revenues. Constructed in 1971,
the facility houses the college’s mechanics and computer science
programs, as well as its day care center. “Serious leakage from the
roof kept us from making other improvements we needed inside,”
Harrell continues. “But now the students are loving it — and our
faculty even more so.”
The Medical
Biomolecular Research Building at UNC-Chapel Hill
is a nearly $65 million facility, of which $22.7 million will come
from state bonds
Desperate for Space
With $2.5 billion in bond proceeds earmarked for the state’s public
universities, those 16 campuses are also gearing up for major
improvements.
As of June 1, more than half of all projects in the universities bond
package were in some stage of completion, either advertising, design,
out for bid or construction. A similar status report of community
college projects isn’t available due to the large number of
institutions and the complexity of their local-match funding.
A major portion of the $46.3 million going to Elizabeth City State
University (ECSU) will be spent renovating campus residence halls,
which officials say are in desperate shape. “Approximately 50
percent of our students live in residence halls,” says Marsha
McLean, director of university relations and marketing at ECSU. But
the age of the campus dorm buildings averages 40 years old. “Only
three of our eight residence halls have air conditioning and just one
is wired for the Internet.”
Others require extensive plumbing and electrical upgrades. “Students
and parents have expressed concern when they see the inadequacies of
our residence halls,” McLean says. The resulting dissatisfaction and
negative word-of-mouth, she adds, have been enough to deter some
prospective students from enrolling at the institution.
Currently in design phase at ECSU are comprehensive renovation plans
for Mitchell-Lewis Hall, Wamack Hall and Doles Hall. Those projects
will total more than $7.2 million. And the campus also will spend $5.5
million on constructing a new residence hall. “Ultimately, we will
gain 200 dormitory beds that will help address our expected enrollment
growth over the next eight years,” says McLean.
McLean and others at ECSU also are looking forward to a new $8.8
million student center that will augment existing recreational
facilities and enable the university to consolidate its student
services into a single convenient location. “The new student center
is long overdue,” McLean says. “The current center was built in
1968 when ECSU’s enrollment was half of what it is today.”
An anticipated crush of new students over the coming decade is also
the basis for much of the planning at East Carolina University (ECU),
which is receiving $190.6 million in bond proceeds. About $55 million
of that amount is being put toward the completion of ECU’s new
Science and Technology Building.
“Right now, we’ve got students starting their lab work at 7 a.m.
and others working until 10 at night because we don’t have enough
lab space,” explains Phil Dixon, immediate past chairman of ECU’s
Board of Trustees. If left alone, the problem would only worsen.
“Our student body is projected to grow from 18,000 to 27,000 over
the coming decade.”
Set for completion by the fall of 2003, the Science and Technology
Building will be home to ECU’s chemistry department and its School
of Industry and Technology. Both are currently housed in the Flanagan
Building, a deteriorating structure built in the 1930s. “You simply
can’t teach sciences in the 21st Century with facilities that are so
antiquated,” Dixon says. With the approval of the bond package, ECU
is now set to grow substantially, especially in the health science
fields that have risen in popularity in recent years. “Allied health
has become such a big part of our programs.”
Other bond-funded projects at ECU include a new building that will
house the School of Nursing, the School of Allied Health Sciences and
a Developmental Evaluation Clinic. University trustees are expected to
select a site near the Brody School of Medicine later this year, with
construction beginning on the $46.9 million project by early 2003.
Watching from
the Web
In March, ground was broken for a new science building at UNC-Greensboro
(UNC-G), a project that has campus officials so delighted that
they’ve placed a web cam on the construction site. “You can log
onto our web site (www.uncg.edu)
from anywhere in the world and see the progress we’re making,”
Chancellor Patricia Sullivan says with a laugh. The
173,000-square-foot building, set for completion by the fall semester
of 2003, will be the largest on campus.
For Sullivan, the Science Building has been a top capital priority
since 1996, and the project will consume more of the school’s nearly
$160 million in bond money than any other. “The current building was
built as a WPA project in 1939,” Sullivan says, referring to the New
Deal program that was responsible for many of that era’s buildings.
“We’ve been sitting on a safety hazard.”
With a price tag of $47.7 million, the four-story structure will
contain research and instructional space for chemistry and
biochemistry. The biology department also will have classroom and
student lab facilities there. All told, an estimated 2,600 students
will participate in classes there annually.
Sullivan and others at UNC-G are particularly pleased with the design
of their new building. For faculty, an “open and invitational
ambiance” was key to incorporating a human element into the space.
Thus, an expansive atrium area, a lounge and a series of airy lobbies,
which are meant to facilitate informal conversation, are woven into
the building’s attractive design.
Safety and environmental concerns also are major themes for the new
building. “The No. 1 issue, especially for the chemistry labs, is
safety,” explains John Atkins, an architect and co-founder of the
Durham-based firm of O’Brien/Atkins Associates, which designed the
facility. “We wanted, for example, the labs designed in such a way
as to give instructors unobstructed visual supervision of all students
at all times.” Features such as ventilation were also critical.
“In the event something does go wrong, you don’t want fumes
collecting. We also wanted to make sure we were being sensitive to
environmental concerns and energy efficiency.”
Included in the new building will be state-of-the-art instructional
gear, an Internet connection for every two students at lab benches,
lab equipment feeding directly into computers, and modern audio and
visual equipment in labs, classrooms and lecture halls.
Long a leader in the use of campus computing, UNC-G is also poised to
benefit from the $4.1 million in bond funds set aside to upgrade its
aging technology infrastructure. “We were one of the first campuses
to go with fiber optics back in the 1980s,” Sullivan says. “Given
the way technology changes, the infrastructure we had was getting
old.”
Thus far, UNC-G has completed half its infrastructure upgrades. With
its networking hardware up to date, Sullivan sees the path clear for
the university to continue to develop innovative web-based programs
for students both on and off campus. “The new infrastructure will
certainly play an important role in delivering distance education,”
she says. But she points out the network also is key to the
reliability of new administrative computing systems that students,
faculty and administrators are increasingly counting on. “More and
more of our student services are going online, as are financial
management applications like purchasing and budgeting.”
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