Western State College has gotten in a frenzy. Dropping enrollment has caused the administration to fear for the future of our institution. The facilities are there, they say. We could have, and have had, nearly double the number of students we currently have. Why aren't they here anymore? What could be done to get them to come back? We must encourage them to come back!
In a loss, it seems, we have looked to CU and other big institution for what to do. What we noticed right away is that CU has a lot more buildings, a lot more new buildings, and a lot more special purpose buildings than we have. So that is what we decided to copy. Using "Build it, and they will come" as a mantra, we have been building new structures for the past five years (well, some renovations as well).
But is this the answer? In chess, if you find yourself responding to your opponent’s moves, because you feel there is no other option (you must protect your queen! No, don't kill my rook!) then you have already lost. Copying CU is not the answer; nor is competing with an institution that size. That is not, and never will be, what Western is. Gunnison is not and never will be Boulder. Thank the Heavens.
Asking Western to compete with a place like CU is like telling the Ukraine to compete with the US economy: it will bankrupt our school. This hasn't stopped the Ukraine, and every other country in the world, from trying to compete with the US, and to play the same game. In hindsight, however, globalization has given rise to starvation, poverty and disease. They were there before, but not on the scale we see today.
I do not believe that this is the time to build a brand new $32 million field-house. We haven't dealt with the last massive expenditure, the new College Center. Until that is fully paid for, we don't go into the red again. That is the bottom line. It might be nice, but it is not worth the proposed tuition raise and I can't see it bringing in so many more students. Besides, that was the theory behind the College Center; we should allow it time to show if it worked or not before we spend $32 million on the same experiment. In the mean time we could focus on expanding programming in ways that will be interesting, take advantage of our location (not destroy our location), but realize that there aren't actually all that many people who want to live where it gets to -40° in the winter. Building something to escape that weather will not make it go away, after all, and those who don't like it still will not come. For those who do like it, Gunnison is a great place.
I have been told before that Western has had more students in the past and "the facilities are here". So why do we have this compulsion to build? That should be the first clue that it's not necessary. Possibly helpful, but not necessary and too expensive. We have created a world-class running team for neigh 40 years without a field house and we can continue without it. It's not a question of "need".
The associated cost will be too big of a deterrent. What will draw in students is to embrace our location, sell WSC down coats, make skiing teams, try to make deals with CB (unlikely, but try) and Monarch. Not stay inside.
Wrote this for Western's newspaper "The Top 'O The World" on Thursday.
ReplyDeleteHope it's published...
I would like to comment in response to Mr. Morrison's posting on Western's administration attempting to emulate CU with a building "frenzy" and "copycat" approach to building a sustainable enrollment for Western. Looking at the current Shavano complex and the Escalante Fitness center as part of our mix of residence life and as our student recreation center, I believe one would be hard pressed to suggest that Western does not have a need for these kind of student amenities to help secure the future of this College. Replacing Escalante with a legitimate student recreation center and field house is hardly a move to emulate CU. It is an attempt to update campus facilities in a way to help the college attract and retain students. Crawford Hall was once the gymnasium on this campus; and the building that houses the Last Chance across from the airport was once the student center on campus. Absent a vision to move forward and to adapt to changing times and needs, Western would today be comprised only of the old North Wing of Taylor, Crawford as teh gym and a "club house" for a student center. Instead, Western evolved into the magnificent campus that we have today. there has been much construction recently (Borick, Kelley renovation, etc), but this is more an artifact of several years of know improvements to infrastructure than to some diabolical and misguided notion of attempting to become CU; or any other university for that matter.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I brought up the CU argument is that I have heard it thrown around a bit recently and it seemed patently absurd. I am glad that you aren't trying to emulate CU. My main points still stand, however: you should sit on the College Center just a little bit before building another structure that actually dwarfs that building.
ReplyDeleteSee, I think Western stretched a bit in building the College Center. I think it's a little bigger than it needed to be, a bit more expensive than it needed to be, and I am not sure it's going to actually pay back how much we put into it. Eventually.... maybe. We should wait and see what happens to enrollment over, say three years. Can't see anything in a space of time less than three years and even that's a bit small. In the meantime, there are other things that can be done that might attract students. Something that isn't "Build a massive Building!"
Not only Western, but the City of Gunnison as a whole has gotten this mentality of "Build it and they will come" (see Gunnison Rising). All I see is the ideology of the cancer cell, as Ed Abby would say. There has to be something else to do other than just build and build and tarmac the entire valley.
As I said in the essay, I keep hearing that Western once had more students, but it had less facilities then than now. So increasing our enrollment shouldn't be dependent on building. There are other reasons, obviously. Changing times, yes, but changing with the times requires a pulse on what's going on, which is really hard.
I think I'm rambling. All's I'm sayin' is I think the campus is good now, don't make it too unrecognizable.
PS: Gunnison Rising: they wanted to know how to keep young people in Gunnison (that's one thing they said) but every young person in the audience at the hearings said not to build.... Everyone I know doesn't like the idea... Most have ruled out Gunnison as a place to live for their lives because of it... That's not gonna keep young people there.