ODE: If the administration is so behind the sale, why do you think there’s such opposition in the University community?
A: Well I don’t know the level of opposition right now, much of the opposition came out before people had a fair chance to look at the terms of the agreement let alone the mitigation plan. The mitigation plan I think is very thoughtful, very generous, but it wasn’t even fully formulated until we had an offer. So I think a lot of the opposition was visceral and will really evaporate when people have had a chance to look at what the University can do for the future. You know the truth of the matter is, I’m the only one of the administration who’s really accountable for results here, in terms of getting renovation of our existing housing, seizing the opportunities that we’re going to need to have for the University in the next century. Nobody else is responsible for that no one else is accountable for that, and that means that there’s an unusual responsibility to try and do the right thing for the long haul. And I think that’s what we’ve done.
ODE: Is that why you’ve put so much of your effort behind this?
A: Yeah, I mean it’s strategically important for the University. And we can leverage an asset and still accomplish other objectives. We’ve retained the Westmoreland community, stabilized rents for longer than anyone else in Eugene gets them stabilized, we’re able to secure the purchase of new properties and are able to get money that will allow us to start renovating residence halls, which we know in some respects are regarded as terrible.
ODE: How do you respond to people saying that the University is turning its back on the non-traditional student community?
A: Well its not. There’s no evidence that it is. These are issues that we can deal with through financial aid or through the existing Westmoreland or other housing. There are a lot of arguments about the non-traditional student but there’s no evidence that we have disadvantaged anyone in a way that can’t be remedied by financial aid.
ODE: Do you think the next dorms that are potentially going to go in – wherever it is they are created – are going to be geared more toward non-traditional students?
A: Well one of the things we have to do is renovate the existing residence halls we have. We have built both family housing and graduate student housing, and we have the East Campus housing that’s available and we have vacancies that are in our existing housing that can be used for non-traditional students, so we’ll assess the overall need of all residential housing for the University and not simply focus on one group of students.
ODE: What exactly is the housing crisis that you were mentioning during the meeting?
A: A University Senate report in the year 2002, which pointed to the fact that our residence halls are viewed as increasingly unattractive by both resident and non-resident students, and that that reflects directly on the University’s attractiveness as a destination. So that in turn has a direct impact on our enrollment size and therefore our overall tuition and state-support income. So this is not a peripheral issue, this goes directly to the economic heart of our ability to operate the University in a financially sound way.
ODE: People have suggested that, ‘Why can’t Campaign Oregon funds go to what we would have used the proceeds of Westmoreland for.’
A: I think that’s very naive. For the reason that fundraising is a very hard business, and our priorities in fundraising are student scholarships and faculty support, and traditionally it’s very hard to raise private funds for residence halls or residential living because that’s regarded as something that the state should do or that we should pay for ourselves. So people who say that just have no sense of what it’s really like to raise money. We’ve been successful at raising money but we’ve been successful because we’re targeting on student opportunities and faculty support. This would be a huge diversion from our priorities for faculty and students.
ODE: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: I think that this basically has enabled us to leverage money to far more than we could ever have found. There’s not a dime to do these things if we don’t do it this way.