Rutgers University says it will create “thousands of badly needed construction jobs” throughout New Jersey with a $500-million construction program that it announced Thursday. The university says 20 building projects on its campuses will employ 5,000 people through 2011.

“As the federal stimulus plan demonstrates, infrastructure improvements are an important way to create jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic growth,” said the university’s president, Richard L. McCormick. “On the state level, Rutgers University can play a similar role as an economic engine across New Jersey.”

Included in the program are: $25-million for an Institute for Health Sciences on the New Brunswick campus. $12-million in renovations to the...

As we noted the other day, construction plans and big dreams continue to roll off the drafting tables, despite the horrifying economy. We’re taking note of some recent news here:

Sunshine in Toledo: The University of Toledo wants to establish a campus that will focus on alternative energy, according to an Associated Press story. The university is already recognized as a leader in solar-energy research. The campus would cost $50-million to create. Lloyd Jacobs, the president of Toledo, has asked for $75-million in federal stimulus money for the project. “We think it’s a good shot,” he told reporters.

Broken Ground in Austin: Austin Community College has

Is this a case of legislative overreach? The Stamford Advocate reports that a state representative is pushing the University of Connecticut at Stamford to consider turning an aging parking garage into a dormitory.

“The garage is breaking down,” Jim Shapiro, a Democrat who represents Stamford, told the Advocate. “It needs several millions of dollars in repair.” Which, to his mind, makes it a prime candidate for a renovation transforming it into student housing, classrooms, and retail space.

The story says that lack of dorm space on the campus has been one of the primary obstacles to growth there.

Grim as the economic news has been lately, some colleges are going ahead with construction plans—which, as Scott Carlson recently reported, will let them take advantage of lower building costs. But others, including Brown and Yale Universities, are holding back.

Yale said today that it would delay construction projects that are not already under way, in addition to making additional cuts to its budget for salaries, the Yale Daily News reported. The university’s president, Richard C. Levin, wrote in an open letter that the university was taking additional money-saving measures because the worsening world economic climate meant that the downturn would last longer than the university had forecast. Even design work on future building...

A utility-tunnel fire that was allegedly set by a disturbed student caused more than $1-million in damage last week at Lorain County Community College, which remains closed today as crews work to clean up extensive smoke damage in six campus buildings. The 11,000-student college hopes to reopen Thursday, according to the Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer.

The fire, which also damaged the college’s electrical and communications grids, began about 5:30 last Wednesday underneath the business building and spread to storage areas used for furniture and paper. The campus was safely evacuated after officials activated several different alert systems — a siren, text messages, and announcements over a public-address system — but three firefighters were treated for...

Over the past several months, I have often driven past a higher-education center that is under construction. I’ve seen bulldozers moving dirt, foundations being poured, and new structures springing out of the ground. On the Web, I see that the master plan calls for all of the usual facilities: general and specialized classroom buildings; a student union; athletic and recreation fields; and lots of parking — the whole works.

I’ve spent over 35 years working in higher education, and there was a time when I would have seen this construction as an exciting development. But now, in a new century with all of its new developments, I have a different reaction — “Why?”

Why is it smart to invest...

The biomass plant at Middlebury College will supply a significant chunk of the college’s power.. (Photo courtesy Middlebury College)

Middlebury College’s $11-million biomass plant was fired up this week. The plant will burn around 20,000 tons of wood chips each year, replacing one million gallons of fuel oil, or half the college’s consumption. The plant, which will provide both electricity and steam for heat, will reduce the college’s annual carbon emissions by 12,500 tons; wood ashes from the plant, which are high in nutrients like potassium and calcium, will go to a fertilizer company. The whole project will pay for itself in 11 years.

College officials put the plant in a central location on the campus to symbolize the...

Cross-posted to the News Blog

Even the giant of higher education is not immune to the ills of the current economy. Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard University, said in two letters issued today that the university will reconsider many of its building plans amid the economic downturn.

“The current yearly endowment distribution — the dollars we take out of the endowment to support activities across the university — is approximately 50 percent higher than it was when the endowment was last at the value we expect as of next June 30,” Ms. Faust wrote in an overview letter. “Tinkering around the edges will not be enough.”

A university’s buildings are inevitably a source of tremendous costs, and Ms. Faust said that Harvard...

Lincoln Hall, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has seen better days. (Flickr photo courtesy army.arch@flickr)

Deferred maintenance is not just a threat to a campus budget. It can threaten the very legacy of a university and its treasures, as an article in the Chicago Sun-Times points out.

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lincoln Hall is falling apart. The building was designed by an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright and built to commemorate the great statesman from Illinois. “Ornate stonework at the building includes terra cotta plaques depicting...

Neighbors of the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University are already griping about it—even though designs for the $300-million facility have yet to be released and no start date for construction has been announced.

So what’s worrying the neighbors? Parking.

Specifically, they’re concerned about a site plan that places a parking garage right across an alley from neighborhood backyards, The Dallas Morning News reports. “That parking garage is going to be 35 feet from my house,” said Tom Bowen, a resident whose property is on the other side of the alley. He complained that “their plan right now isn’t even to have a wall” between the garage...