The following op/ed is from College of Charleston President P.George Benson:
As we struggle to cope with a painfully slow economic recovery, South Carolinians have every right to expect that state funds will be spent wisely. Even though the College of Charleston receives only 8.5 percent of its current budget from state sources, we recognize our obligation to be good stewards with the funding we receive.
Recent media stories and editorials have suggested that South Carolina’s public universities have been on a building boom over the past four years that ignores our current economic challenges. I want to respond to some of the issues raised in these articles about construction spending.
First, it is illogical to complain about construction spending that, in many cases, was committed prior to the recession. Capital projects for public universities are planned many months or even years prior to the first shovel being put in the ground. When you see construction workers renovating the College’s Randolph Hall in 2010, you are seeing the results of a planning process that began in 2005 and for which funding was identified before the economic crash of late 2008.
Second, we have been told that three of the nation’s wealthiest private universities – Harvard, Princeton and Yale – have “put a halt to capital projects,” which apparently means that South Carolina’s public universities should do the same.
For the sake of accuracy, we should recognize that Ivy League universities have not eliminated all capital spending, though that spending will be significantly reduced in the coming years. Princeton broke ground earlier this year on a new, $180 million neuroscience and psychology building, which will be completed in 2013. Yale recently spent over half a billion dollars on capital projects in a single year, according to an article published last February in the Yale Daily News.
Even though their enrollments have been stable for years, Princeton, Yale and other wealthy institutions have continued to spend on capital projects. If you want to find examples of how to hold down spending on construction, don’t look to the elite universities of the north.
In contrast, the enrollments of many of our state universities have been increasing to meet the needs of South Carolina students. In fact, the College of Charleston has doubled its undergraduate student population since 1990, and we have done so without doubling the size of our campus.
Our faculty and students will confirm that many of our classrooms are far from luxurious, and meeting space on the College of Charleston campus can be difficult to find. In short, we are still catching up with basic campus needs, following the rapid enrollment growth of recent decades.
Third, most capital projects at the College of Charleston have nothing to do with state-funded amenities for our students, as some critics appear to believe. These projects more often involve the renovation of aging buildings.
Consider the historic Charleston home at 5 College Way, in the middle of the College’s downtown campus. Built in the late 1820s, this structure was acquired by the College in 1971 and has been used for almost four decades as an office building. It has not had a major renovation during that time and is plagued by significant mechanical and electrical problems. This is but one of 80 buildings on our campus over 100 years old.
The building at 5 College Way has been approved for renovation, and that project will begin shortly with the support of federal stimulus funds. The renovated 5 College Way will be much more environmentally friendly, will cost us less to operate, will be protected by a sprinkler system, will preserve the historic character of Charleston, and will better meet the needs of our students, faculty and staff.
A capital projects freeze that prevents the responsible and cost-effective renovation of buildings like 5 College Way would be a disservice to our current students, our historic city, and to future generations of South Carolinians.
Every public university in South Carolina is unique, and every university is responsible for justifying its building projects. For the sake of our students and for the economic future of our state, I ask only that South Carolina’s leaders consider each building project on its own merits. In many cases, halting construction and renovation projects is neither the cheapest nor the wisest option.
