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Visions for 2008: Delivering the Promises <- You Are Here
VISIONS FOR 2008: DELIVERING THE PROMISES
UM is moving upward with new research, academic initiatives and increasingly competitive pools of students and faculty. Our community initiatives are expanding along with our partnerships and development projects. We have increased financial aid to ensure that all qualified Maryland residents have access. But the success of all of these efforts depends upon having appropriate facilities on campus.
Facilities at College Park have been under supported for many years. When the mission and scale of the campus (e.g., numbers of students) are considered, the deficiency is striking as seen in Figure 10.
Since 1988, over the entire history of the University System of Maryland, UM has taught about 35% of FTE students outside of UMUC. The CIP allocation per student has been sharply decreasing since 1999. For FY08 the USM requested 12% of the CIP for UM and the Governor recommended 3%. Allocation of capital funds should consider both the mission of the university and the scale of its operation. A building by building estimation of renovation costs shows that almost $600 million is required to renovate campus buildings that are more than 20 years old. Thirty-two percent of campus NASF was built before 1956, and 900,000 NASF has never been, or has only partially been renovated. Ten 50-year-old buildings have never been renovated. Further, the State's estimation of space need shows a 1.1 million NASF shortfall in 2005 (equivalent to 15 large buildings), rising to 1.6 million NASF in 2015 5. In other words the University currently faces a 16% space shortfall that will rise to a 23% shortfall in 2015. In summary the campus does not have enough space by large measures and what it does have is in desperate need of renovation.
In human terms this under funding has serious consequences: an electrician died five years ago in an explosion in the Physics building; the Tawes theatre, which had been a hub for classes and performances, cannot be used to full capacity due to numerous structural problems; there are walls falling off Shriver Laboratory and the Physics building; some building foundation drains are no longer functioning and have caused flooding in Woods Hall, Tydings Hall, and Francis Scott Key on numerous occasions. These problems are not isolated but are examples of patterns occurring across campus. Such conditions detract from the excellence we cultivate at UM. They directly impact our ability to recruit outstanding faculty (two top candidates refused offers last year due to inadequate facilities) and the most talented students.
2008 Priorities
Facilities that are competitive with those at peer institutions is a State policy mandate that was written into law.
The renovation of Tawes is our top priority. The project was on our 10-year CIP request for 12 years before planning money was first allocated in FY05. The renovations will allow the English Department to be unified in a single, central location after being moved to temporary surge space 16 years ago. Scheduled to open in May of 2009, the Tawes building will provide classroom space and media facilities for a department that teaches
20,000 students each year. The delay of construction funding is a serious blow to our outstanding English Department faculty and the thousands of students they teach each year.
The Physics building is currently inadequate for the level of research that takes place there. The UM Physics Department is ranked No. 4 among all public universities in the country, and 13th nationally. The antiquated facilities cannot support many areas of experimental physics. Recruits are declining offers of appointment because of inadequate space. The University has made the construction of a new Physical Sciences Facility a high priority for State capital funding. Funds under this initiative will support selective faculty and staff hiring and equipment purchases in emerging areas with significant commercial applications such as atomic and molecular physics, nanoscience, geophysics and geochemistry, biophysics, and condensed matter physics. In addition, funds will support the new physics education program aimed at supplying physics teachers to the K-12 sector where they are greatly needed.
The Philip Merrill College of Journalism received a $4.4 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of a $19 million private fund-raising effort to help fund a new building and create an institute to study the future of journalism. The University is grateful for the $10 million allocated last year for this project and the legislature's promise of $5 million more this year.
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