Auraria needs repairs

Campus officials: Crumbling facilities amount to a crisis

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 5, 2006 at midnight

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Sitting in the heart of Denver, the Auraria campus is facing a double dilemma: a student population that is bursting at the seams, coupled with buildings that are showing their age.

Auraria, established in the early 1970s to serve about 15,700 students, is burgeoning with an enrollment closer to 37,000 - one-fifth of the state's college students.

In August, Metropolitan State College of Denver had to close its chemistry lab because fumes were approaching dangerous levels - the result of a deteriorating ventilation system.

Three months later, the lab was closed again.

Across the Auraria campus, the South Classroom building has been so overcrowded at times that carbon dioxide levels have been high enough to cause people to complain about fatigue and lightheadedness, said Dean Wolf, Auraria's executive vice president for administration.

And in the coming months, Wolf is contemplating stacking portable storage units around the outer edge of campus to free up closets and storage rooms for the growing ranks of faculty and staff.

If the campus doesn't get some money to build additions and fix aging buildings soon, the colleges that share the campus - Metro State, Community College of Denver and University of Colorado at Denver - could be forced to cap enrollment, Wolf and Metro President Stephen Jordan said.

That would mean some of Colorado's neediest and most underserved students could be turned away.

"The average person doesn't realize the conditions on this campus," Wolf said. "It's getting very serious."

But when Auraria officials stand before the state's Capital Development Committee today to request state money for improvements, they'll face stiff competition for limited dollars.

As the state spiraled through financial crisis in recent years, state money for capital improvements dried up, leaving behind a backlog of requests.

In fiscal year 2001-2002, for example, the state originally allocated $159.7 million. That was cut to $62 million as the economy imploded midway through the fiscal year.

In the next four years combined, state funding for higher education capital improvements totaled roughly $50.7 million, according to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. About $18.6 million more was allocated in federal dollars.

Combined, the four-year total is still less than half of the 2001-2002 funding level, and during some of those years, the allocation included no money for building upkeep.

Help from Ref C

The passage of Referendum C last month helped matters.

By statute, about $31 million will be automatically allocated for capital development, and lawmakers could shift more funds in that direction, said Joan Johnson, a former legislator and the CCHE's director of capital assets.

But in higher education alone, there are 26 requests for state funds totaling $84.3 million.

They include repairs to Dwire Hall at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs - where a 10-pound chunk of concrete fell off the building this past summer - and new telephone systems for Northeastern and Otero junior colleges, whose phones are so old that parts are no longer available to fix them, Johnson said.

"It comes down to where the committee thinks the greatest need is," Johnson said.

Auraria has three items on the list: An addition to, and renovation of, the Science building, which the CCHE prioritized as No. 12; renovations to the Arts building, listed at No. 15 by the CCHE; and the South Classroom, ranked No. 26.

Johnson said the CCHE ranked projects, in part, by which ones already have received funding, and whose total cost could grow exponentially by any further delays.

CU Regent Michael Carrigan, who serves on the Auraria Higher Education Commission board of directors, said there's no doubt Auraria's requests should be closer to the top of that list, even though this is the first request for both the Science and South Classroom buildings.

"We're in financial quicksand, and it's time for the state to throw us a rope," Carrigan said.

While Auraria officials recognize that other colleges are in dire straits as well, they also say that any closure, such as the chemistry lab, hurts their students more because Auraria's 216 classrooms are so tightly booked.

Classes at Auraria begin at 7 a.m. and run until 10 p.m. All rooms are in use 90 to 95 percent of that time, with more than 400 classes being held on the weekends. In a letter to lawmakers, Auraria's lobbyists also noted that the campus has roughly 69 square feet per full-time student, compared with 176 at the University of Northern Colorado, 206 at the University of Colorado-Boulder and 215 at Colorado State University.

"It's not like we can move somebody into another Science building," Jordan said. "This is the Science building."

The colleges already have gotten creative, Jordan added. They're offering more Internet-based courses, as well as classes that meet all day Friday and Saturday. Next year, Metro will begin offering classes at Front Range Community College, taking some burden off Auraria.

Hiring plans

But both Metro and CU-Denver have plans to hire dozens of new faculty over the next few years to meet the needs of growing enrollment. Right now, there's nowhere to put them.

"At some point, (the space crunch) becomes a stumbling block for future growth," Jordan said.

So Auraria officials are contemplating something they've never done before - a capital campaign, complete with selling naming rights to buildings.

The idea is still in the discussion stages, and no one can say how much money they would aim to raise.

But they do know such a capital campaign wouldn't be the solution to all their problems.

In all, the costs to renovate the Science, South Classroom and Arts buildings would total about $105 million. The maintenance needs for the campus are expected to total $18 million more over the next five years.

It's difficult for colleges that are newer - Metro, for example, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and the Auraria campus has only been open since 1976 - to raise funds, particularly anything near that amount. Most colleges' biggest donors are older, and often have a generations-long history with a college.

Also, most donors want to provide money for new buildings or programs for which they have some kind of connection. Not many people open their wallets for general repairs such as a new roof or ventilation system.

Then there's the time issue. Most capital campaigns span several years. And, as Wolf said, "We just can't wait."

Raising fees or tuition to cover the costs also isn't an option, he said, because the Auraria campus serves some of the lowest-income students in the state - students who could drop out if faced with even a slight increase.

That means he and other Auraria leaders will be lobbying hard for lawmakers to allocate money to their campus in next year's budget.

"I'm going to do my best," Wolf said. "There's no reason students taking classes on this campus should expect anything less than the quality they would get on any other campus in this state."

burnetts@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5343

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