Seven top administrators, including President Fr. Bill Beauchamp, joined the ASUP Senate on Monday evening to talk about future changes to campus, practical applications for the updated Nondiscrimination Policy and breaking ground for the new recreation center, among other things.
The group also included Executive Vice President Fr. Mark Poorman, Provost Thomas Greene, Vice President for Student Affairs Fr. Gerry Olinger, Vice President for Financial Affairs Alan Timmins, Vice President for University Operations Jim Ravelli and Interim Vice President for University Relations Laurie Kelley.
The new recreation center
The biggest news at the meeting, according to several senators, was Ravelli’s announcement that the new recreation center will not have a swimming pool in the first phase of development.
ASUP Vice President Elvia Gaona, a junior, said she has heard low use of the current pool in Howard Hall is the reason it was not a priority.
“I think that it’s really upsetting,” Gaona said. “If we had a pool in the new rec center, it will be used. I don’t think we should be applying the use of Howard now to the use of a new building.”
But Ravelli said a pool may be added in a future phase of development.
The new recreation center, budgeted at $23 million, will officially break ground in May on the field where the current Public Safety building is located. Joe Etzel Field was originally considered as a possible location, but was ruled out because the University did not have enough money to fund a replacement baseball field.
Searching for the next president
When Poorman was asked about the speculation on campus concerning him being the next president, he and the other administrators laughed.
“If I was one of those candidates, I would be very pleased,” Poorman said.
Since Beauchamp is retiring in May, a search committee, appointed by the Board of Regents, will start the process of looking for a new president.
“What makes this a little bit different from other schools is that the next president will be a Holy Cross Priest,” Beauchamp said, “In terms of national search and opening up to everybody, that won’t happen. It will be a Holy Cross Priest.”
Campus: the center of social life
At the start of this year, the Pilots After Dark program moved to Late Night Programming under Student Activities, a change meant to allow for more events and activities. Both Olinger and Poorman want campus to have a livelier social life.
“I’m probably one of the few vice presidents (of Student Affairs) in the country that get to say that one of my mandates I’ve received from the president and executive vice president is to increase the fun on campus,” Olinger said.
Olinger believes having a vibrant life on campus is an invitation for students living off campus to visit the UP campus community.
With more students attending UP and a push for more students to stay on campus, according to Poorman, the University faces a crowding problem.
“We have the happy problem of our dorms almost stacked to capacity,” Poorman said.
The University is looking at strategically rearranging the residence halls to maximize space, but eventually more dorms will need to be built, Poorman said. Once there is adequate space, Poorman is hoping to instate a second-year live in requirement on campus.
The Nondiscrimination Policy
Despite the recent inclusion of sexual orientation in the Nondiscrimination Policy, Beauchamp doesn’t see practical applications to this change.
“If it makes more people comfortable that we have that, that’s important,” Beauchamp said. “But it does not represent a change in University policy. What it did do was put in writing our nondiscrimination practice all along.”
When senator sophomore London Ballard asked Beauchamp if the change to the Nondiscrimination Policy would allow faculty members to bring their same-sex partners on study abroad trips, he responded, “Probably not.”
“I don’t want to talk about ‘what ifs,’” Fr. Beauchamp said. “But there is an important sentence in that nondiscrimination clause, and that is we will follow the teaching of the Catholic Church.”
Women in administration
After former Vice President for University Relations Jim Lyons left last month for a job at Santa Clara University, Beauchamp gave Kelley the interim position, making her the only female upper-level vice president – at a school where the student body is 59 percent female. An ASUP senator asked Kelley about her perspective on this.
“I think they have had really good people in this position in the past who happen to be men,” Kelley said. “And I would not want to get this position solely because I am a female.”
She does hope to be named to the position permanently, she said.
Physical changes to campus
Physical Plant is currently in a cycle of performing needed upgrades and repairs each summer to various residence halls that were neglected in the past, according to Ravelli.
In the last few years Physical Plant made updates to Kenna and Mehling Halls, including replacing windows and elevators.
“I think Mehling had not been touched since it was built,” Ravelli said.
Next summer Physical Plant plans to redo the windows in Shipstad Hall. Villa Maria Hall is the next one up for renovations. Ravelli expects Villa Maria Hall will need some extra attention since it was built in 1957.
Physical Plant is also taking over the property management duties of the 40 University-owned rental houses from Residence Life. It is already responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the houses.
“You just change who you write your check to,” Ravelli said.
As part of the 10-year Master Plan for facilities planning and construction, the University hopes to purchase streets on campus from the City of Portland. According to Ravelli, “street vacation” is a complicated process that involves obtaining permission from surrounding properties, and it takes time. The street that University Operations is most interested in purchasing is Van Houten, across from Fields and Schoenfeldt Halls.
“It gives us the flexibility to use (the street) as we might want to looking forward,” Ravelli said.
Upcoming river campus
Since the $5 million cleanup of the 35-acre river campus, a former industrial site, the Environmental Protection Agency has given the OK to start planning for short, middle and long-term development.
“For the short term, we’ve talked about things like putting a boathouse down there,” said Poorman. “There’s a sore need for practice fields on campus, it’d be great to have a couple lit practice fields (on river campus).”
In the long term Beauchamp and Poorman hope to see buildings on river campus.
