Editor’s note: This article is the second of two that explore the consequences and reasons behind a critical lack of space at Cal Poly that impacts certain majors more than others. Read the first story here.
There are over 4,000 degree programs, nearly 460,000 students and 23 campuses spanning the state of California.
With so many disciplines to house, space becomes more of a question than a guarantee. At Cal Poly, the music department and theatre and dance department share a building that struggles to cater to even one.
Theatre and dance department chair Brian Healy said the building was an afterthought.
“This building was never designed to accommodate for performing arts programs, right?” Healy said. “It was meant to be a complement to the ag and engineering colleges.”
The Mustang Band also continually finds themselves with nowhere to go, leaving them to sacrifice practicing altogether. Like Healy, they’ve done everything they can to express the urgent need for renewed facilities.
Still, raising concern about these problems is nowhere near enough for something to be done — state funding is scarce, prioritization is limited and the backlog of necessary building renewal only continues to grow.
From pitch to construction
On paper, plans for new buildings are laid out in two places: the campus Strategic Plan and the Academic Master Plan, CSU Principal University Planner Hong Lin said.
At the CSU level, the Five-Year Plan lays out projects through 2029. Projects that may be requested for this are limited to only one per campus each year, Lin said, meaning even though Cal Poly’s Master Plan does recognize that the Davidson Music Center (Bldg 45) is in need of attention, other projects are prioritized.
She also said they conduct a feasibility study, which investigates whether an entirely new building is necessary, or if a current one can just be renovated.
“We’re required to basically document and revalidate the use of every square inch of CSU buildings each year, we have to do this once a year,” CSU Chief of Planning and Design Jack Anderson said.
This documentation is also sent up to the state level, he said.
Then, several approval processes are required to secure CSU approval and funding for projects that are pitched. In July, the preliminary five-year plan is brought to the Board, Lin said, and this is approved or denied in September.
How is project priority determined?
With this process in place, project priority is granted very sparingly; often, it’s given to address existing facilities rather than building new ones, principal fiscal and policy analyst at the CSU Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) Lisa Qing said. While this can be a cheaper option upfront, capital renewal needs can be amplified.
Capital renewal refers to periodically replacing building components when they no longer can serve any use, according to a report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
“When you have these old facilities, you could face high costs, or facilities require more frequent servicing, and eventually, there is a higher likelihood of something going wrong,” Qing said. “And then the campuses do emergency repairs. And that costs a lot of money.”
The report revealed that $3.1 billion in capital renewal needs for the CSU system are expected to emerge over the next 10 years, on top of an already existing backlog of about $6.5 billion. Cal Poly currently has the sixth highest cost projection of the 23 CSU campuses.
With limited funding yet so many projects to fund, Lin said the CSU Board of Trustees approves categories and a list of criteria to be used when determining how priority is allocated.
Anderson said that the programs and majors themselves are of the most importance.
“The buildings really are just what serve as background and housing for the programs and the majors,” he said. “It’s really, those are the focus, those are always going to be the drivers. The buildings just provide the space so that you can have teaching occurring in them.”
According to the current CSU Five-Year Plan, priority is given to address “critical seismic and infrastructure deficiencies, including fire/life safety, utility infrastructure critical to campuswide operations, reductions in GHG emissions, and deferred renewal in existing facilities.”
For building modernization or replacement in response to academic or enrollment demand, priority is assigned on a “case-by-case” basis, according to the plan.
Lin said there is an element of competition between the CSU campuses since this process is upheld systemwide.
One way that schools might have a better chance of having certain projects prioritized is if they are able to secure funding from a donor, which Anderson said is “kind of like a boost.”
The role of donors
One of Cal Poly’s newest buildings, the William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation, is one that was largely funded by a $110 million gift from Bill and Linda Frost to the College of Science and Math. Planning for this building began in January 2017 and construction lasted from May 2019 to May 2022.
Yet even while this might increase the chances of a project being prioritized, additional funding “does not guarantee a higher prioritization for the project based on the strategic needs of the system,” according to the Five-Year Plan.
For Healy, Cal Poly music department chair Alicia M. Doyle and associate director of bands Nicholas Waldron, attracting donors is difficult when they barely have space to operate.
“Building out a brand, building out an identity, making that connection with the community, that’s on us,” Healy said. “But that can be hampered when your spaces are so limited.”
The expensive truth
For capital projects, Lin and Anderson said there is currently no more funding for capital projects since they have used all funds available during the current budget cycle. This also means the Davidson Music Center will have to remain as is for a while longer.
Now, they are waiting to see if measure SB 28 — also known as the California Public School and College Health and Safety Bond Measure — makes the ballot in November.
This measure would authorize $15 billion to be split between all California public schools, $2 billion of which would go to the CSU system. The measure is not confirmed yet, but Lin and Anderson hope that it will make it and will be voted in favor of.
The total CSU operating budget for the 2023-24 budget year stands at about $8.1 billion, $5 billion of which comes from the state’s General Fund and $3.1 billion that comes from student tuition and fees, according to the 2023-24 budget book plan.
The budget book said there is a significant lack of funding that is creating “cost pressures” for the CSU campuses.
“Each CSU university is undertaking a critical assessment of priorities and how to balance available resources with rising costs, unfunded mandates and underfunded compensation increases,” according to the budget book.
The evolution of CSU building needs
Of course, addressing the environment that students learn in is crucial, but Lin said there has been a recent shift that also calls for considering students’ lives outside of the classroom.
“I’ve seen many campuses and students need more kind of study space or informal for hangout space on campus,” Lin said. “Many of our old buildings are designed like you come in and take your class and then you leave. There’s no space designed for students to stay before or after in that building.”
A more recent development is the quickening pace that is necessary to make changes.
“One of the things that’s happened even in the last few years is the nature of the way — even before the pandemic, the pedagogy and the way that instruction was carried out has radically changed and the changes are coming much quicker these days,” Anderson said.
Student concern extends to other CSU campuses
Outside of Cal Poly, students have expressed grievances about their own buildings.
At CSULB, the Fine Arts building has held a reputation for its poor condition — one so bad that Kristen Huizar, a recent graduate of CSU Long Beach (CSULB) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting, helped organize a walkout.
Falling ceiling tiles were a hazard students continuously noticed in the building. But what was even more evident was that the building did not have proper air conditioning, she said, and did not have proper ventilation even for the rooms that needed it because of chemical exposure, such as where students were using oil paints.
Even with portable A units, the rooms would still be upwards of between 80 and 90 degrees. Yet, she noticed that the science building near hers had perfectly functional AC.
“I think it’s because the arts are always the first to lose funding,” she said. “People don’t care about it enough to give them, to give us, enough money to have adequate spaces. And I don’t think it’s just a CSU problem. I think it’s just a problem in general and public education.”
The walkout really only led to “cosmetic fixes,” Huizar said.
Of course, there are other campuses outside of Cal Poly and Long Beach. But Huizar saw the reach of experiences similar to her own in one of the CSU Board of Trustees meetings she attended. A professor from a different campus was there and he said he had been coming for 10 years, always asking for the same thing.
“CSU continuously lets the students and faculty know that they don’t care about them, that they’re not a priority, that their well being is not a priority,” Huizar said. “What’s more important is getting funding for alumni or getting funding to make certain amenities look good while other buildings are, like, crumbling on campus.”