Testimony to the Maryland General Assembly
Capital Projects
Presented by
Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., President
University of Maryland, College Park
March 2007

The University of Maryland has moved rapidly to a new level of distinction and excellence as mandated by State law. To fulfill the State's mandate, to accommodate the research generated by our outstanding faculty and to guarantee the highest quality education for our undergraduate and graduate students, we must provide physical facilities at the level of a nationally eminent university.

Priorities for capital funding this year include construction money for the new Journalism Building. Additionally, two urgent priorities for funding that were not included in the CIP are construction money for the renovation of the Tawes Building and planning money for the new Physical Sciences Complex.

New Journalism Building

The purpose of this project is to provide a new, state-of-the-art facility for the Philip Merrill College of Journalism that will enhance its existing academic, research, and public outreach programs. This project is for the construction of a 59,700 GSF / 32,830 NASF office/classroom building located northwest of the Tawes Fine Arts Building. The new building will provide the opportunity for the College to vacate the cramped and aging Journalism Building and consolidate, from seven on- and off-campus buildings, its academic, administrative, research, professional outreach centers, and support operations into a single building.

The project takes advantage of a tremendous private funding opportunity. The total cost for this project is estimated to be $27.7 million. Of this, $12.7 million will come from private sources and private sources will cover any increases in cost beyond the current estimate. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is the major benefactor, providing $5M in support; the building will bear the name Knight Hall. In FY07, the CIP provided $10 million, and the Governor's request is for the additional $5 million needed to begin construction in FY08. The University will request no additional funds from the State for this building.

Construction of this project will address these significant problems:

1. Lack of appropriate space prevents the Philip Merrill College of Journalism from reaching its full potential as the nation's preeminent college of journalism.

The project will increase the amount of assignable space by 8,840 NASF for the College so that its operations can be consolidated, creating opportunities for collaboration and interaction not currently possible, and providing improved teaching facilities. The building will add basic amenities, like a reading room and doctoral carrels, found at all of the College's peer institutions and will enable more flexible classroom configurations, consistent with current participatory pedagogical techniques.

2. The College's faculty, staff, classrooms, and professional centers are currently located in seven different buildings, three of which are leased buildings located off the main campus.

The space shortage has necessitated the removal of the College's professional centers to other buildings and reduced the number of courses taught within the existing Journalism Building. The project will bring all of the College's operations under one roof. This major step will enhance what the school can be for all its constituencies -- students, faculty, staff, alumni and industry participants in its professional training programs.

3. The existing facilities are in poor condition, obsolete, and inadequate for the University to compete with premiere journalism schools around the country.

The last three accrediting teams to visit the Merrill College since 1991 have issued cautionary notes regarding the inadequacy of the existing space assigned to the College. For instance, all classrooms except one are without central air conditioning, relying on loud and intrusive window units instead.

The new building will provide the space and infrastructure required to support technological advances in the instruction and practice of journalism, keeping the College competitive with its peers.

4. Many of the College's undergraduate classes are offered in campus buildings remotely located from the Journalism Building with inadequate technology.

Lacking adequate classroom space in the Journalism Building, each semester an average of 22 percent of the College's total course offerings are held in different buildings located remotely from the existing Journalism Building. These classrooms are not configured and equipped to support modern journalism teaching methods. Nearly one quarter of the College's courses are being taught in remote locations or ones lacking adequate technology.

This project will provide an 80-seat Teaching Theater / Audio Broadcast Studio with TV production capability, four seminar rooms for 12- to 35-person journalism classes, four writing / editing labs with 18 computer workstations each, and a 20-seat computer teaching theater.

5. There is a campus-wide shortage of instructional space.

Based on State space guidelines, the Fall 2005 shortfall of classrooms space is 69,959 NASF. This project will reduce that shortfall by 8,625 NASF.

1. Converting Tawes for English is more cost effective than constructing a new building.

Our aging facilities are undermining our goal to build a world-class university. Focusing capital resources on the renewal of our existing buildings would, in many cases, provide a more cost effective solution to our facilities problems. Converting Tawes for English is estimated to cost $182 per GSF in escalated dollars. If we built a new building instead, it would cost about $350 per GSF, almost double the cost. Tawes urgently needs systems upgrades. For years we have been implementing "band-aid" repairs to keep the HVAC system barely operating, such as pouring "stop-it" liquid in radiators and cooling pipes to stop leaks!

English will vacate the surge building (Susquehanna Hall), which will be used as surge space for a succession of critically needed renovations of our aged historic buildings along McKeldin Mall. The first of these is Jimenez Hall, which is in the USM CIP in FY 2010/2011 and will be 48 years old when work is initiated. Subsequently, we plan to renovate portions of Francis Scott Key Hall (built in 1932), Woods Hall (built in 1948) and portions of Symons Hall (built in 1940). This project will provide for cost effective facilities solutions by releasing surge space that will allow us to renew our existing infrastructure.

2. Tawes is currently under-utilized.

Excluding Tawes Theater and Ulrich Recital Hall, almost 20 percent of the space in Tawes is not occupied because it is in poor condition or was designed for performing arts activities and cannot easily accommodate other academic programs. Small academic units are temporarily occupying Tawes and will relocate elsewhere when this project begins. This project will result in 100 percent usage of the space in Tawes.

3. Tawes provides the opportunity to unify the English Department in a central campus location.

Bringing this currently scattered department under one roof will allow it to maximize the efficient provision of services with existing resources. Also, putting it in a central location will make the services more accessible to our 25,000 undergraduate students, all of whom take advantage of its services.

1. Existing facilities are dilapidated, and obsolete, resulting in significant negative impacts to the teaching, research and outreach missions.

These units primarily occupy the Toll Physics Building (original portion built in 1950), the IPST Building (built in 1955) and the Computer and Space Sciences Building (original portion built in 1963). Except for some limited renovations of a few specific spaces, these facilities remain largely unchanged since their construction. Much of the existing space in these buildings is dilapidated and obsolete. Despite ongoing maintenance and repair, which has been increasing over the last five years, these facilities continue to deteriorate. Obsolete systems are increasingly difficult to maintain; parts have to be manufactured because replacement parts are not available.

The ability to properly heat, cool and ventilate these buildings is complicated by obsolete controls, inadequately sized primary equipment, and, in many cases, poorly configured distribution systems. HVAC systems do not meet modern standards for teaching and research. Inadequate environmental control has resulted in poor indoor air quality. Portions of the buildings, including instructional space, have no central air conditioning and are served by noisy and dirty wall units. The electrical systems have reached the end of their useful life and have insufficient capacity, consistency (minimizing surges) and back-up to support modern teaching and research. Wiring in the Physics Building crumbles in the hands of maintenance staff replacing light fixtures and circuits are overloaded. Piping in the Physics Building frequently fails resulting in flooding. Networking and telecommunication systems are obsolete. Finishes are deteriorated and unattractive. The research infrastructure does not meet the quality, capacity or condition required for cutting edge research; environmental control, electrical power and high-speed data transmission infrastructure are all inadequate.

The infrastructure deficiencies result in: significant limitations to the teaching and research capabilities of the units; significant disruptions to the operations; and negative impacts to recruitment and retention of the best and brightest students and faculty. In October 2002, an electrical panel in the Physics Building exploded resulting in the death of an electrical maintenance employee. Recently, a National Academy of Sciences faculty member left the University in part, because of the inability of the infrastructure within the building to support his research. Offers of faculty positions have been rejected because of these facilities. If facilities are not significantly improved, the quality of the Physical Sciences programs will diminish. In particular, the high-ranking Department of Physics would see significant decline in ranking and reputation.

2. The units are housed in three separate locations on campus, with Physics and IPST each split between two locations, resulting in operational inefficiencies and missed opportunities for increased collaboration.

Historically, given the opportunity to interact and collaborate, separate research groups have joined together to form new inter-related research areas. Co-location of these units will result in increased collaboration and allow them to reach their full potential in sponsored research activity. The physical separation has resulted in duplicative administrative functions (e.g., payroll, contracts and grants, computing) that could otherwise be streamlined, allowing more resources to be applied to the teaching and research missions.

3. Lack of available space will prevent the Physical Sciences units from reaching their potential in sponsored research activity.

During the last five years, UM undertook extraordinary measures to maximize the use of available space to accommodate increasing sponsored research opportunities in the Physical Sciences. Unfortunately, adequate space ceases to be a viable option, and UM will soon be in a position where it cannot accept new sponsored research opportunities in this field. The increased amount and quality of space this project will provide will allow the Physical Sciences to achieve the projected annual amount of $47.5 million in sponsored research awards by FY 2014.

4. There are campus-wide space shortages in instructional and research space.

The Fall 2005 campus-wide shortfall of instructional space is 69,959 NASF and the Fall 2005 campus-wide shortfall of research space is 708,190 NASF. This project will release about 136,000 NASF of space in the Physics Building and about 14,000 NASF of space in the Computer and Space Sciences Building that will be reassigned to other university functions to help address these shortfalls.