By Rosemary Peters
The traditional "Fireside Chat" with UP President the Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., heated up in St. Mary's Lounge Nov. 24, as students sought answers to their burning questions about UP.
A hot topic of the evening was the issue of finances, from tuition to the endowment.
According to Beauchamp, students can expect to see a rise in tuition, but one that is less than or on par with the approximately five percent increase experienced by students last year, when full-time undergraduate tuition went from $29,400 to $30,800.
"We are very aware of tuition and the increase should be fairly low," Beauchamp said. "It will definitely not be any higher than what it was last year."
He also mentioned that the endowment is on the rebound, following steep declines last year.
"We invested it differently and it was a wise move," he said.
However, despite the improvement, Beauchamp also said it will take a while for the endowment to fully recover from the economic downturn.
Another major topic of the evening was Howard Hall and efforts to build a new recreational facility. Although the administration recently closed an online questionnaire for what students and staff would want in a new recreational center, Beauchamp does not want to release survey results.
"We've just got raw data. There hasn't been much analysis of it yet," Beauchamp said. "But there are no real surprises."
The school currently has $5 million out of the $20 million needed to build a new center, and the timeline for the project depends on when the school raises the money, he added.
"I hope to break ground on it before I leave office," Beauchamp said. "There is an equal amount of money in the bank for both rebuilding Howard Hall and the library, but the library is not the embarrassment that Howard Hall is."
Beauchamp also addressed the defeat of ASUP's resolution in support of a proposed smoking ban.
"There is a lot of support for this from the faculty. People object to having to walk through smoke when leaving a building. It is an issue of health," Beauchamp said.
Beauchamp took a melancholy tone when he talked about UP Executive Vice President the Rev. Tom Doyle, C.S.C., who will leave UP for the University of Notre Dame at the end of this school year.
"UP's loss is Notre Dame's gain," Beauchamp said.
Doyle will be the Vice President of Student Affairs at Notre Dame. Among several responsibilities, his new job will entail managing student affairs for Notre Dame's 30 resident halls.
Beauchamp announced that he will not replace Doyle with a new administrator, but believes he can realign duties to cover his departure.
"Not to say his job isn't important, but I think we can realign responsibilities and maybe bring on an assistant," Beauchamp said.
On the subject of UP admissions, Beauchamp said that undergraduate applications have skyrocketed for the fourth year in a row, noting that the number applications - approximately 9,400 - for this year's freshman class was the highest in UP history. Incoming applications for next year are up by 25 percent when compared with this point last year.
The increase in UP's student population over the past few years is not only affecting degrees, but space on campus. The building experiencing the biggest space crunch is The Commons.
"Over the summer, we will be totally renovating the existing Commons," Beauchamp said. "It will have a different environment and it will be a different way to have food served."
The new Commons will be open late at night and will include soft seating and a fireplace. It will also operate as a declining balance, which is an a la carte style of food service.
"Students can go as often as they want," he said. "Five times a day if you like."
Along with The Commons' face lift, the "Riverfront Campus" is also seeing some improvements, according to Beauchamp.
UP has torn down buildings and put up lights and fences on the property known as Triangle Park, a former industrial site that is part of a major clean-up effort involving the Environmental Protection Agency, Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality and UP.
Beauchamp said professionals are taking more samples of the park's soil to check for contaminants. The school is also dumping dirt on the property.
"We had a pool of $4 million for cleaning up the property and we have used about half a million," Beauchamp said.
Beauchamp spent quite a while talking about plans for the property, including putting in baseball fields, moving Physical Plant and the tennis complex and building a six-level parking garage built into the side of The Bluff.
