It was recently reported in the Register-Guard, as well as this newspaper, that the University is trying to make arrangements with a housing complex called Stadium Park to accommodate the incoming freshmen it doesn’t have room for on campus. The complex, Stadium Park, is so named for its proximity to Autzen Stadium on the other side of the river, which will basically require students to use the Kinsrow line to get to class every day.
The incoming freshmen who will live, supposedly, in these 500 or so off-campus beds can still get free bus service to campus courtesy of the ASUO incidental fee – ironically, probably one of the few ASUO services that benefits every student, especially in comparison with some nonsense like the mandated student funding of OSPIRG. But that’s another story for another time.
The problem with this, though, is that the on-campus housing shortage has resulted in a need for more student busing to campus, greater inconvenience and even the loss of students who have been admitted to other schools – precisely the kind of students we should be attracting.
And as anyone currently occupying a double residence hall room in the Bean Complex surely knows, the University consistently ranks as one of the worst in the nation for residence hall housing, ascending even to the coveted second place position on the “Dorms Like Dungeons” list of the Princeton Review in recent years. And at the same time, the University is planning to turn new singles back into doubles to accommodate the record enrollment for next year.
To someone who cares about the future of this University, this residence hall disaster should be very disconcerting. As much as students will always complain about their dorms, I must emphasize that residence halls are not just a matter of student comfort. Residence Halls are essential to a meaningful learning experience: A quiet and organized room provides an important place for studying, reading and working on school projects. Further, and perhaps more importantly, the promise of a positive residence hall experience is crucial to attracting intelligent and dedicated students who may have several college choices.
Yet, despite both our consistent rankings on “horrible dorms” lists and our impending housing crisis, the University has only built one residence hall facility since 1963 – the Living Learning Center, opened last year.
The University’s biggest eminent building project is, without doubt, the new basketball arena – scheduled to cost around $245 million. The Living Learning Center, which provided 400 new beds for University students, cost a mere $27 million in comparison. But unlike many of the people who have spoken out against the arena project, I don’t deny the importance of athletics and alumni centers for fundraising – which ultimately will provide us the means to enhance student learning when less and less of our funding is coming from the state.
To be fair, most of the money raised by the University to date has been in pursuit of academic projects, and the University has indeed announced a plan for massive new residence halls. But I must underscore the importance that residence halls can have for fundraising too.
First off, the single best guarantee of future private donor revenues is the ample supply of future private donors: smart, hard-working alumni, more often than not, who understand the importance of giving back to education. The only way to do this is to assure you’re not turning good students away with bad – or non-existent, as the case may be – living arrangements.
Second, residence halls are perhaps one of the best naming opportunities for large donors. The most well-known and commonly recited names on campus are those of residence hall buildings: There’s hardly a student who can get through four or five years here without coming across the names “Carson,” “Barnhart” or “Hamilton” at least a few times a week. And while I cannot deny that the name “Autzen” gets way more national exposure, I feel that residence halls may have been entirely overlooked as naming opportunities for the donors who are willing to throw down.
Third, and of course most importantly, the University cannot effectively raise money nor can it secure good students if it’s forking over more money for athletics than it is for academics. Most schools tend to neglect their academic departments in pursuit of the big money from television royalties, athletic endorsements and high-roller fans. I hope that we do not end up doing the same.
Academics as a source of valuable fundraising is hard to quantify in comparison with athletics – its effects are indirect, take longer to be seen and aren’t nearly as exciting. But I would argue that the impact of academics on donor revenue – and therefore, of building projects like residence halls and classroom buildings – is far more significant.
Well-educated graduates end up being leaders in business, politics, the sciences, the arts and can provide for a healthy local economy, good state policy, innovations in technology and creative, open-minding thinking way more easily than reruns on ESPN can. All of this translates not only into a better world but also into more money for University fundraisers.
In short, it’s my hope that we can learn from the lessons of this year’s housing shortage and pursue new residence hall projects much more aggressively. If not, we must prepare to face the consequences of turning away our best students.
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