W. DALE NELSON Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Sunday, March 6, 2005 12:00 am
LARAMIE - University of Wyoming trustees voted Saturday to expand the campus to provide space for a $16 million anthropology building and clear the way to extend the Coe Library into space the Anthropology Department now occupies.
Assuming all of the owners of the affected property agree to sell, the university will own an entire block between 12th and 13th streets just north of Lewis Street, which now forms the northern boundary of the central portion of the campus.
The trustees' action was a major step toward "utilization of property north of the campus for expansion of academic or research needs," as called for in the UW's Capital Facilities Plan.
The university already owns a little more than half of the buildings on the north side of Lewis in the affected area. It will negotiate with owners of the remaining structures, two small residences and a six-unit apartment building.
Shawn McGinnis, UW's real estate operations manager, has said that the university would typically offer appraised value for the buildings. Albany County assessors' records show that they have an appraised value of just under $400,000.
The existing Anthropology Building on Ivinson Avenue will be demolished to make way for expansion of the library into an Information, Library, and Learning Center. According to the Capital Facilities Plan, the structure does not meet the operational needs of a library and information center and would be too expensive to modify.
The $45 million library expansion is scheduled for completion in 2008. It is planned to include advanced computing facilities for students, a core computing center for the university and a central computer support center as well as the traditional print functions of a library.
The trustees also gave final approval to a tuition step-up that will cost resident undergraduates an additional $5 per credit hour in the academic year that begins in the fall. Their tuition per hour will go from $87 to $92, an increase of 5.74 percent. Increases for nonresident and graduate students will also increase, as will student fees.
Trustee Peggy Rounds of Evanston voted against both the tuition increases and a companion measure that will increase the tuition differential for Law School students by 15 percent. They already pay 5 percent more than most other graduate students at the university.
Rounds objected to a portion of the benchmarks accompanying the tuition hike, which takes into account the median family income in each of the western states except California. She argued that "it is OK to go out of state and look at what they are doing," but that the computation could put Wyoming students at a disadvantage.
Trustee David F. Palmerlee responded that even if the median family income was overstated, it would not affect the result very much.
Rounds said she was "skeptical" about the differential proposal, which would mean law school students would pay 20 percent more than others for at least the next two years. Trustee Warren Lauer of Laramie said that as a graduate of the UW College of Law, "I stand fully behind this. It makes sense, and is a good start."
Tom Buchanan, UW vice president for academic affairs, told the trustees Friday that the differential is needed to pay for faculty that are needed to keep up with developments in the legal profession.
John Hill of Laramie, speaking in a period set aside for public comment, urged the trustees to abandon plans for an addition to the west side of the Classroom Building to accommodate additional classrooms and a student lounge.
Hill said other spaces could be used for these purposes, and the addition would spoil the circular design of the building, which is to undergo renovation this summer and next.
Star-Tribune correspondent W. Dale Nelson can be reached at wdnelson@bresnan.net.