Drove by the in-progress Welcome Center this past weekend while attending Salukicon and once again thought how the money used in its construction could be better used in rehabing so many of the buildings on campus. Roofs that have leaked for a decade, HVAC equipment so old maintenance has to hunt for parts on eBay, a shiny new building is not going to fix those problems.
Yes, you are correct. How SIUC gained its recent elevated status with the condition of buildings, hiring freezes, and lack of faculty in certain programs defeats me
ReplyDeleteIt isn't meant to fix those problems. It is meant to attract new students and new donors. And help build the SIUC brand.
ReplyDeleteI went to Boston last summer and visited both Harvard and MIT's campuses. Those campuses are very well taken care yet those Universities - who each have endowments in the tens of billions of dollars - still have old buildings with leaky roofs and HVAC problems. Some of their buildings are literally hundreds of years old. No one cares.
Why? Because the brand is all that matters. SIUC is trying to build its brand. Spending money on old leaky roofs doesn't build a brand.
The real "brand is good education not flashy buildings. Leaky roofs promote word of mouth over how dismal the campus is. This is an ideal case for Elon and his Doge Horsemen of the Apocalypse to investigate - in addition to those bloated salaried administrators who are responsible for SIUC's decline and should go in the cause of educational efficiency.
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