Though still only numbers on a page, the capital improvement plan has already begun to divide a campus it is intended to fix.
The Ohio University capital improvement plan is projected to spend more than $977 million during the next six years, and $2.5 billion during the next 20 years, according to the plan.
The plan sets the agenda for overhauling the Athens campus — which has a $413 million maintenance backlog — during the next 20 years. The backlog is projected to grow to $1 billion by 2032 if the capital improvement plan is
not implemented.
Projects in the plan include renovating many current buildings and erecting new ones, but some university professors are concerned with the way the university plans to pay for the improvements: taking on almost $570 million in debt during the next six years alone.
“This is an ambitious long-term plan,” said Elizabeth Sayrs, chairwoman of Faculty Senate. “My concern as we move forward … is that we give priority to projects that are necessary to directly support the academic core of the university.”
Believing that many of the upcoming projects reflect the needs of the faculty and students, Sayrs expressed worries about the plan’s impact on tuition and fees — a concern Joe McLaughlin, a member of the Facilities Planning Advisory Committee and the former Faculty Senate chairman, agrees with.
“Things need to be kept in the right balance and I think right now, they seem to be more aggressive and concerned with buildings and not adequately concerned with the erosion we have seen in the faculty over the last five to ten years,” McLaughlin said.
While McLaughlin said he respects attempts by the administration to plan for the future, he is deeply worried that tuition and fees will have to be raised in the future to pay for the plan, something he refers to more as a “wish list” than a document that is set in stone.
“The funding sources for many of the projects in the six-year CIP are still under consideration,” said Michael Angelini, associate vice president for finance and planning. “To that end, all options are being considered for use in paying debt service as well as strategies to continue to reduce expenditures and, thus, free-up existing sources of revenue.”
While tuition and fee increases on students have not been confirmed, they are being considered by the administration as a means of paying for the massive campus overhaul, he said.
“There’s a real ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality among the administration with things like buildings,” McLaughlin said. “I wish they would have a ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality with faculty salaries.”
In defense of the plan, Harry Wyatt, associate vice president for facilities, argued that upcoming projects in the plan reflect a commitment to academics and the students of the university.
“Facilities are where we learn. They’re where I work,” Wyatt said. “Their condition reflects how well we enjoy our daily life and the capital plan … is a very sound investment and very much considerate of faculty, staff and students.”
One area that both McLaughlin and Wyatt agree on is that the level of state appropriations the university has been receiving has not stayed level, but has declined, which could put a greater burden on students and faculty in the future.
“The dollars that students pay for their rooms should be reinvested back into their rooms … so we’re building more efficiently and replacing those buildings … so that money is going to the right place,” said Christine Sheets, assistant vice president for capital and facilities planning for Student Affairs.
At the end of the day, though, it comes down to making hard choices with limited resources.
“The fact of the matter is we’ve slipped in (university rankings); we have fewer tenured and tenure-track faculty than we had five years ago,” McLaughlin said. “I think this is a necessary thing, but I wish there was the same kind of attention to issues of academic quality as there has been to this.”
dd195710@ohiou.edu
