EDITORIAL: Campus projects should benefit all students
Earlier this month, the university submitted a capital funding request for $24 million to build an addition to the Health Professions Building.
The decision to pursue the expansion arrives after an intensive master planning effort and the result of a 10-year capital plan. By all accounts the extension sounds beneficial, but was it the right time to seek a new health and science-related construction project?
The university already has agreed to build a Biosciences Building, scheduled for completion in December 2016.
The College of Medicine is also in the process of realizing a new addition to clinical facilities in Saginaw, adding to a large list of active and planned construction projects.
While an increased focus on the academic core of the university is a positive mindset, it’s also important to realize that we aren’t covering all areas.
When former CMU President Michael Rao officially opened the Health Professions Building, he cited a campus-wide perspective shift.
“There is a new standard at this institution,” Rao said at the grand opening in 2004. “Clinical practice and research at CMU in the last five years have started to receive national ranking, and now CMU facilities, including this facility, have become international models that are being investigated for duplication. You need to enjoy this building knowing you will have helped change CMU forever.”
The shift away from a regional, liberal arts school toward health and science intensive research poses some problems, however.
The past two state financial requests have been directly related to health and science, effectively neglecting other, more liberal arts-related areas of campus.
It also puts CMU in direct competition with schools already focused in that direction, including Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.
At a time when the university is projecting a continued enrollment decline and is already facing a budget deficit from decreased tuition dollars, increasing direct enrollment competition and largely ignoring the humanities and fine arts might not be the best answer.
Although promoting the academic core might promote increased enrollment, large construction projects inevitably take a large financial toll on a university, especially when further costs have yet to be assessed.
Emphasis, then, must be placed on what projects will benefit the largest amount of students. Huge undertakings such as the College of Medicine or an expansion of the Health Professions Building might be nice, what good do they do for most students, especially at a time when they are pouring in more of their own money to the university than ever before?
When examining the 10-year master plan unveiled over the summer, new undergraduate housing and renovations of Brooks and Pearce halls jump out immediately as projects that, while expensive, could benefit a huge number of students.
When choosing what kind of money the university should spend, those projects, and others, should top CMU’s agenda.
CMU must look at what projects will enhance the educational experiences of the most people possible, not niche projects that look nice on paper but only impact a handful of students.
