Yale and other Ivies undergo campus-wide facelift

While the mystique of a Harvard or Yale conjures up images of beautiful courtyards, historic buildings, and first-class academic facilities, age has taken its toll on building maintenance across the Ivy League. In response to crumbling facilties, Yale and its rivals have decided to take action. Ivy schools have recently initiated major renovations to their student dormitories and buildings in order to upgrade their images.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH MASSIVE OVERHAUL: Yale is just one of many Ivy League schools in the midst of multi-million dollar campus-wide renovations.

Yale is in the midst of $500 million project to renovate its dormitories, and its academic and athletic facilities; Princeton and Columbia are each spending over $300 million to upgrading their campuses.

Harvard has instead managed to stay on top of preserving its buildings compared to other Ivies. "We've looked pretty good, we've always stayed ahead of the curve," Marlyn McGrath-Lewis, the director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard-Radcliffe, said.

Harvard allocates between $15 and 25 million for maintenance and improvement of buildings and facilities annually. McGrath-Lewis stressed that it is "hard to play catch-up from behind." For this reason, Harvard spent three years in the early 1990s renovating all of its freshman dorms in Harvard Yard.

Harvard student Lauren Wetzler '00 was impressed with her school's commitment to reovations. "Harvard seems to put a strong emphasis on keeping up its facilities," she said. "The creation of a center for the humanities, for example, was really necessary, and Harvard did a great job creating a beautiful new facility by renovating the old Freshman Union."

Yale's academic buildings and dormitories, on the other hand, were left to decay throughout the earlier half of this decade. "I have been told of summer programs where visitors were to be housed in Timothy Dwight. When the visitors got there, they were so repulsed by the state of the rooms that they demanded Yale put them up in a hotel," Jeremy Taylor, SM '00, recalled.

Arch Currie, Director of Project Management Facilities at Yale, admitted that Yale maintenance has left something to be desired. "There was a time going back to the early 1970s during which only minimal amounts of money were authorized to address on-going maintenance needs of our buildings," he said. "Maybe we could have started earlier, but it's better not to look back," Richard Shaw, dean of undergraduate admissions added. "All that is important is that Yale is going to be ready for generations of future Yalies."

Princeton has also realized that the incremental approach to renovations just wasn't enough. Jon Hlafter, Director of Physical Planning at Princeton, explained that they tried to rehabilitate their undergraduate dormitories during the summers but found that they "couldn't stay up with the tasks during a 10-week construction window."

Hlafter said that like Yale, Princeton has turned to the "notion of building a swing dorm." Because renovations can then be done over the course of a whole year, instead of just a 10-week period in the summer, they can be much more thorough and substantial. Hlafter described the goal of renovations as, "[taking] a major component of the system and [making] it as good or better than new while preserving historical aspects."

The flurry of renovations at Ivy League schools may impact the decisions that prospective students make regarding which institution to attend. "We are doing more and better renovations than many of our sister institutions," University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, said. "We absolutely feel that the renovations will give us a competitive advantage--witness the dramatic changes in LC and the PWG for example."

Shaw agreed that renovating the dorm and academic facilities should be a plus for Yale admissions, though he stated that the status of physical structures plays a "secondary role to academic foundation." McGrath-Lewis added that while "looking better is intuitively better than looking worse," students generally choose a particular institution on grounds "beyond just a cobweb or a crack."

The benefits of renovations extend beyond the admissions appeal. Updated facilities, for example, lure first-class faculty. Improved athletic facilities, such as Princeton's new football stadium, not only attract atheletes, but also enhance school spirit and old traditions. "Going to football games has become a huge event for the whole campus again," Princeton student Lauren Clabby '00 said. Bernice Lee, PC '99, said, "I feel pride when I show visitors that I live on an attractive campus."

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