SIUC plan draws fans and critics

By Alexa Aguilar

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

CARBONDALE, ILL. -- Colleges are competing for students by building plush recreation centers and swanky dormitories that cost millions. But until recently, that building craze had bypassed Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Enrollment has been stagnant for years at the school of about 20,000 students.

"Things have been dormant here," Chancellor Walter Wendler said last week. "We need a major infusion of energy to this campus."

Wendler says that infusion could come in the form of his proposed "Saluki Way" project, which calls for five new classroom buildings, a football stadium, a renovated basketball arena and the construction of a pedestrian thoroughfare leading through campus.

Some of what he called the "cruddy" buildings at the campus' front door bruise the university's image, Wendler said.

"We have become used to substandard facilities here," he said.

Nowhere is that more apparent than the school's decrepit football stadium, built in 1938 and renovated in 1974. Wendler calls the stadium a "rusting hulk." Athletics Director Paul Kowalczyk says it's an embarrassment.

The stadium, which greets drivers on the major highway leading to campus, has extensive water damage, exposed insulation in its old weight rooms, patched concrete and rusted seats and railings. The athletics director's box -- where Kowalczyk would normally host big-time donors or visiting officials -- is closet-sized, with musty carpet and dark, '70s-style paneling. A few years ago, a dead squirrel was found in the press box's now out-of-order bathroom.

The SIUC basketball arena hasn't been remodeled since it was built in 1964.

Despite the antiquated facilities, SIUC is red hot in the high-profile sports of football and men's basketball. The once-woeful Saluki football program is in the midst of a dramatic turnaround. At times in the last two years, it has even been ranked No. 1 nationally in Division I-AA.

Men's basketball, though, remains the school's flagship sport. The Salukis have been in the postseason NCAA tournament four consecutive years, advancing to the Sweet 16 in 2002 and the second round last season.

But Kowalczyk wonders how the teams can continue those trends with the current facilities, especially as other schools lure recruits (and student sports fans) to campus with flashy facilities.

"I don't know how we can maintain it," he said.

Competing interests

Marvin Zeman, a professor of mathematics, is a football fan and said he understands the need for a new stadium. But as the president of the faculty association, he's frustrated to hear about a new building plan for the college. The university just completed "Southern at 150" - a long-range blueprint on how to become one of the nation's top 75 research institutions by 2019, SIUC's 150th anniversary.

"How can we put the money toward raising research productivity and higher faculty salaries that will attract the best faculty, and build all these buildings?" Zeman said. "This university has a lot of needs. ... I wonder what our priorities are."

He said he'd like new classroom buildings but pointed to deferred maintenance needs crying for attention in the existing buildings. While the school's woods and lake paint a picturesque scene to visitors, there are classrooms with leaking ceilings and laboratories with "unwanted mice," Zeman said.

The professors he talked to aren't worried, though. They think "Saluki Way" will go the way of most of the university's other long-range plans -- ballyhooed at the time, and then set aside when top administrators left after a few years.

Kowalczyk said the difference this time is the school's current leadership. Wendler is not afraid to say that the campus needs a major rehab. And while some on campus don't agree that spending money on "image" problems is the answer, there are plenty who do. And there's a latent alumni base hungry for an actual plan to rally around, he said.

"It's all about our self-image," Kowalczyk said. "We don't have a very good one if we allow this to happen," as he gestured to the rusted stadium.

Paying the bill

"Saluki Way," which would cost at least $360 million over 10 years, would use a combination of private dollars and state funding, paired with a likely increase in student tuition or fees. The university is hoping some major private donations will jump-start the giving.

To naysayers who argue that a public university can't come up with those kinds of dollars in this time of federal and state deficits, Wendler points to the last three years.

Since 2002, construction projects totaling $150 million have sprung up on campus and were paid for by a combination of student fees, state funds and private donations.

A $4.5 million gift by alumnus Pete Witmann built an academic and weight-lifting facility for student athletes. Fees will pay for new student housing -- the first on campus since 1968. The library is in the midst of a $43 million rehab, paid for mostly by state dollars. A tuition increase paid for some classroom upgrades.

Meanwhile, other Illinois universities are jazzing up their facilities. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is considering a major renovation of its Memorial Stadium, a plan that could cost up to $120 million. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, which has grown substantially in the last decade, is building new dorms and has several newer classroom buildings on campus.

SIUC students are mixed on whether a building boom is necessary. Kyrus Daugherty, a junior in radio and television, said he's not looking forward to the tuition increase he's sure would accompany a major overhaul.

But Mike Chamness, a sophomore in physical education and a member of the SIUC track team, said he's embarrassed when he sees the kinds of athletic facilities at universities where his school competes.

(Republished with permission of St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Copyright 2005, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)