Many colleges have put off repairs and renovation since the recession. Now crumbling buildings, limited budgets, and mounting debt present an increasingly intractable problem. Sightlines, a consulting company that tracks and analyzes facilities issues at more than 300 colleges, shared some of its latest findings with "The Chronicle". The data…

With tax revenues beginning to rebound in most states and endowments on the rebound at many private and public institutions, colleges and universities are growing more hopeful about their financial outlook and instituting new strategies to take advantage of the opportunities. Yet as the economic recovery has slowed in the past few months,…

Each year at Utica College, a tiny pot of money stands as a kind of symbol of where the college hopes to go and how close it sits to the edge. In a $55-million budget, after the college has paid its employees, heating bills, and other expenses, about $150,000 is left over for what the college calls its initiative fund. Todd S. Hutton, the…

Help for colleges may be on the way in the $825-billion stimulus package being pressed by Congressional leaders. The bill that House Democrats introduced this month includes $7-billion for higher-education modernization, renovation, and repair that could kick-start projects like upgrading heating and cooling systems, fixing roofs, and doing…

It is most surprising that Yale University is spending $126-million to renovate and add to a 1963 Modernist building that almost everyone has hated for decades. Aside from that, the project's champion is a high-society architect whose own career refutes pretty much the whole Modernist design theology. This article talks about the renovation of…

This article reports that Florida State University officials are gearing up for what could be another bruising battle this month over a proposed biomass plant that could bring the campus cleaner, cheaper energy and monetary support for alternative-energy research. Or, it could bring noise and pollution to a nearby neighborhood, according to…

In the early 1990s, Pomona College began planning to replace a cramped, plain building that had served as its campus center for decades. The Smith Campus Center, which was opened in 1999 and costs $18.3 million during construction, ended up being ignored by students. After tweaking things and achieving little results, the college decided to hire…

This article reports several two-year institutions who are seeking out architects to create impressive new buildings as well as imaginative renovations of humdrum buildings from the 1960s and 1970s. Johnson County Community College, in Overland Park, Kansas, opened a limestone-sheathed museum, designed by Kyu Sung Woo Architects, that the "Kansas…

Colleges have always struggled with deferred maintenance, but several factors might make that struggle especially challenging in the future. Colleges grew rapidly in the postwar years and have a generation of 1960s or 1970s buildings that need major repair or replacement. In the past 10 years, colleges went through another building boom, adding to…

Welcome to the Centennial Conference: 11 small, private liberal-arts colleges in the mid-Atlantic region that belong to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III, where there are no sports scholarships to lure top-notch players. Instead, the contest to recruit the best athletes--a high-stakes game that has long defined only the…

Colleges have been building so-called smart classrooms for years, equipping them with computerized projectors, digital whiteboards, and other tools. Now some of those once-high-tech rooms are starting to show their age at many colleges. At the Auraria Higher Education Center, a facility used by three colleges in Denver, a group of high-school…

When "The Chronicle" asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list. They said they were concerned not only that their spaces met their needs but also that their campuses had a pleasing appearance. That's no surprise to Thomas G. Contos, university architect at…

The economic outlook may be sour for Wall Street's investment banks and for homeowners who took out mortgages they could not really afford, but campus planners and architects say that--so far, at least--colleges' construction plans are largely unaffected by the downturn. Some colleges, in fact, are trying to speed up projects to limit the damage…

In India's beleaguered higher-education system, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) stand apart. The seven institutions have turned out some of the world's finest engineers and computer scientists, eagerly recruited by top graduate schools in the United States. Many of the institutes' graduates have gone on to become the chief executives of…

Many college and university trustees say money matters are the biggest challenge their boards face. This article discusses the results of "The Chronicle's" survey of the fiscal condition of public and private colleges. According to the survey, board members of four-year institutions are grappling with how to pay for new buildings and how to repair…