Standard Eight – Physical Resources
The College’s mission - to sustain a vibrant academic community and to offer students an education that will help them excel in their intellectual, creative, professional and community service goals – is directly affected by the ability of the College to provide modern or updated facilities for students, staff and faculty. The College has created a 10-year capital renewal plan which was recently updated in 2007. The College has aggressively pursued funding for renovating existing facilities and for a new instructional building during the past nine years. The funding has produced significant improvements in the capability of the College to teach and house its students and to provide appropriate space for the staff and faculty.
The Evergreen State College has experienced an exceptional amount of capital funding over the past nine years. The Washington State Legislature in collaboration with the Governor has made a cumulative investment of over $110 million to add new facilities, renovate facilities and reduce the maintenance backlog during these years.
The renovation of old space and addition of new space both for teaching/learning and working have enabled the College to maintain its reputation as one of the premier public liberal arts higher education institutions in the United States. The collaboration between the academic and administrative sides of the College has ensured that the needs of the learning part of the institution receive a high priority when the capital funding request is provided to the governor. The five foci, interdisciplinary education; linking theory and practice; teaching and learning across significant differences; personal engagement in learning; and, collaborative learning; play a definitive role in the development of the College’s physical resources by ensuring the engagement of the entire College community and sustaining the move towards a green and sustainable campus environment.
The adoption of a revised strategic plan for the College in 2007 and the expectation of declining capital funding were instrumental in the College’s decision to complete a new master plan for the next 15-20 years of College development. This master plan was designed to build on the policies established in the 1998 Master Plan and the 2005 revision, as well as the revised strategic plan and the mission/priorities elucidated in that plan. The College’s new Master Plan was developed with the extensive involvement of staff, students and faculty, as well as the external community. These groups participated throughout the development of the Master Plan via a wide variety of methods – charettes, meetings with designated units, staff, students, faculty, and the external community, an interactive web site, individual one-on-one meetings, open forums including our external community, and participation in the Synergy Conference. One of the prime considerations in the development of the facility master plan was to ensure that the plan provided for sustainable development of both the built and natural environments. Additionally, the consultant collaborated with the academic programs in providing students with the opportunity to participate in the master planning effort as “consultants”, project assistants, etc. This partnership was crucial in the development of the master plan, its presentation to the College community and Board of Trustees and final acceptance.
The College will need to continue to renovate and modernize its facilities. There will need to be even more collaboration between the academic and administrative units to ensure that the resources gleaned from the state are applied to the highest priority areas. It will be necessary to ensure that resources are provided to properly maintain the facilities to meet the changing requirements of the staff, faculty and students. There will be an increased interest in making the College a model for sustainability and ensuring that the capital projects reflect our goals in this area. The integration of old and new will require all to look for new ways to do business in the area of physical resources.
There is a strong indication that the future funding for capital projects may be reduced due to an expected decrease in state revenues. This reduction comes just as the programmed renovations of the 35-year old science facilities are half way complete. The potential decrease in capital funding from the state will require the College to be more aggressive in its presentation of the capital funding request in order to meet the state mandated increase in its offerings for science and mathematics. Additionally, the infrastructure of the buildings continues to age which requires more effort to ensure that the buildings are properly maintained and able to meet the demands of the students, staff and faculty.
One of the key projects was the construction of the new Seminar II facility completed in March 2004 at a cost of $45 million. This project added 198,775 square feet to the College’s inventory. This building is significant for several reasons: first, it was the first building at a state higher education institution to achieve a LEED Gold certification; second, it was the first new facility constructed at the College since the 1970’s; and, last the teaching spaces were designed to enhance and complement the teaching style of the College.
Another large project was the major renovation of the largest facility on campus, the Daniel J. Evans Library (about 350,000 square feet at a cost of about $45 million). This renovation affected several key components of the College and is being accomplished in two phases. The first phase, B & C-wings, was completed in July 2006. This phase significantly improved the Library area, the academic computing area, and the media support center. The Library was expanded to provide additional space for the collection (including rare books), more resource space, to incorporate the Learning Center and to improve accessibility. The academic computing area expansion provided more laboratories for the various types of computers and software and increased the size of the common computer area. The media support center renovation has provided more teaching and learning spaces, additional room for media equipment (this is extensively used by students in their various programs) and better support space for the staff.
Also during this time the College was funded to renovate Lab II first floor and third floor and Lab I first floor. These renovations were critical since the work provided modern laboratory space to meet the changing needs in the various programs. The lab renovations also allowed the faculty to ensure that the space would be multi-disciplinary, corresponding more directly to the pedagogy practiced at the College. Additionally, the state has provided funding ($1.7 million) for renovation and expansion of the College’s singularly unique facility, the Longhouse. The Longhouse renovation and expansion will improve the capability of this facility to house its programs and staff and to meet the increase demand on the facility from both the Native American constituents and regular College programs. The state in conjunction with the students has provided funding for the renovation and expansion of the Campus Activities Building. This project is also unique in that it combines funding provided by the state for renovation work ($4.9 million) with bond funds secured by a per quarter unit fee ($5.25 per unit), voted and approved by the students, which provides another $16 million for expansion and additional renovation of this facility. The design of this project began in September 2007 and is expected to be complete by December 2008/January 2009 with construction to begin in April 2009 and be completed by August 2010.
There has been a revenue bond program of approximately $6.4 million in the Residential and Dining Services area which has re-roofed 17 residential units, provided new kitchen equipment, renovated space in the high rise residential units, modernized the elevators and updated the fire alarm system and installed sprinklers in these same units. These significant investments along with other capital funding during the past nine years are having a positive effect on the academic and student life programs.
In addition to the major capital funding received from the state the College has received significant continued funding for deferred maintenance in the areas of health, safety and code compliance; facilities preservation; and, infrastructure preservation. Over the past nine years the College has received over $33 million in order to reduce this deferred maintenance backlog. Major work has been done on most of the building roofs, the data network infrastructure, roads and those buildings and areas not impacted by major capital projects.
