A community council meeting was held on the main floor of the Stearns tower to discuss yet another expansion to the residential facilities at Williams Village.
The meeting was held to inform and get feedback from the surrounding community leaders, many of whom live in the Fraser Meadows housing community that is located just east of the parking lots.
These residence halls however are not just meant to house students and alleviate some of the need for off-campus housing, but also to enrich the student’s academic life. Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Julie Wong, is taking point on the implementing of RAPs (Resident Academic Programs) in which students of the same major or focus live in the same dorm, have at least one class in that dorm, and take part in community activities that enhance topics that they cover in their RAP classes. RAP programs are not advertised in any way but word of mouth due to limited space. The goal is to have 25 to 27 percent of on-campus residents participating in a RAP dorm by 2030.
Wong said she wants to make the RAP a more dynamic program
“We want to incorporate more upper classmen in these programs, and make room for them in the whole of on campus living. We want to encourage students that become involved in RAP’s their freshman year, to stay and share their passion and experience with the next class of freshmen,” Wong said. “Even now, in our current dorm situation, residence halls that house around 25 percent of upper classmen have decreased misconduct by 90 percent, compared to the all freshman dorms. By allowing dorms to be home to only freshman is like the blind leading the blind; we want upper classmen to act as mentors and guides for our new students.”
This is only the first part of the second phase (phase 2a) of a total of 14 possible phases (phases a-n). This master plan of 14 phases includes all levels of student housing, parking structures instead of the dirt lots, and faculty housing.
Phase 2a, however, specifically deals with constructing a hall where the storage parking is currently located, behind the Stearns tower. This hall would have 400-500 beds, and help alleviate the current housing dilemma faced by an ever-expanding freshman class.
The planning committee on the project has been working closely with CUPD, Boulder PD and Boulder community leaders, who are concerned about misconduct among incoming freshmen. The new buildings will come equipped with card-lock rooms, blue phone emergency pillars, increased bus routs and foot patrol to keep students safe. In most residence halls, they also plan of devising a way for there to be front desk entrances and closed circuit cameras to limit access to residence and guests.
Many people in the meeting were wondering where the funding was going to come from for the construction of the halls, and with the current economic recession how could the University could be so certain that the growth we are seeing now will continue.
“In an economic downturn we expect more Colorado high school students to go to an in-state university, not only to save money, but to assure that they are getting a valuable education for an ever-increasingly competitive job market,” said Phil Simpson, the Assistant Director for Facilities Planning. “At the University level we see inverse trends to the economy, when there is recession people go back to school to become more competitive and those who are there out of high school stay longer.”
The current WillVill expansion master plan was first conceived in the mid 1990’s to anticipate the rapid growth CU has experienced in its freshman class. The project was put on hold due tof political reasons and funding. Phase one of the master expansion plan was realized in 2003 with the construction of the Bear Creek apartments.
For a short time, an outside property management firm that built the apartments and was endorsed by CU to use them as upper classman residence halls controlled Bear Creek. However, the property management company soon suffered set backs with rising energy costs and other operating costs, and turned back to CU to cover the difference. Eventually CU took over the managing of the halls and the property firm was no more.
According to Vice Chancellor of Administration Frank Bruno, CU will fund all new construction and manage the residence halls from this point on.
Another large concern for the community as a whole is the height of the new buildings. Many students, staffers and Boulder residents feel like the current WillVill towers are an eyesore on the otherwise pristine Boulder skyline. With many people in the surrounding communities using solar panels on their roofs for electricity, they have concerns about solar shadowing caused by any new buildings.
Luckily for them, the new residence halls will reach no higher than five stories. The heads of the project plan on tapering any future buildings down to two stories in order to refrain from blocking the view of the mountains for current residents of Fraser Meadows.
The new residence halls will also be constructed by strict environmental standards. The architectural building bids are projected to start rolling in, and with that, hopes of breaking ground late 2009 or early 2010 are possible.
“We are not concerned about not being able to fill the dormitories,” Simpson said. “The residents who will move into the newly-constructed halls will, in effect, pay for the construction, so current residents won’t have to worry about a rise in room and board to pay for the expansion.”
The news of enhanced on-campus living is appealing to many students, including Hayley Ashburn, a 20-year-old junior English major from California.
“I think that sounds really neat. I guess I always had this vision of going to college and having intellectual discussions with my friends at coffee shops, and in the dorms and stuff,” Ashburn said. “I feel like most of the dorm life here is centered around plastic handles of hard liquor.”
For more info on the project go to www.colorado.edu/facilitiesmanagement/construction
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Heather Loser at heather.loser@colorado.edu
