Even in an ivory tower, someone has to pay the bills. As universities around the country auction off art collections, let faculty members go and cut staff pay, the economic decisions that must go into keeping higher education afloat have never been more obvious.
So it comes as no surprise that when the UT System Board of Regents hired Cooper, Robertson & Partners LLP, a New York-based architectural and urban planning firm, to advise them on the best use of the Brackenridge Tract, money was the cornerstone of the two proposals that the firm came up with.
When consultants surveyed the picturesque, lakeside property, they could not picture it as home to a biology lab, a historical golf course and 500 graduate students too poor to buy brand name cereals.
Instead, as Michele van Deventer, a principal at the firm, explained to the Regents, the consultants envision the tract becoming “a natural extension of downtown,” and Austin’s “new lake front district.” Their plan calls for extensive housing developments, shopping centers, market squares and a spa-hotel.
The plan also depends on eliminating Lions Municipal Golf Course, which was founded in 1924, reducing or relocating UT’s Brackenridge Field Laboratory and consolidating graduate and married student housing.
We agree that the tract is not currently being used to its full potential. When George Washington Brackenridge donated 500 acres to the University of Texas in 1917, he intended for the site to become a new main campus.
But 50,000 students continue to attend classes on the 40 Acres, which is three miles from the Brackenridge Tract. The main campus’ location is ideal for student involvement in city politics and entertainment, but students compete intensely for on-campus housing. Most are all but forced to leave campus after their first or second year and retreat to the overpriced housing market of downtown Austin.
UT’s Permanent University Fund has dropped 27 percent (from 11.7 billion to 8.6 billion) since 2007, the legislature has not increased its funding for the University and tuition is already skyrocketing. Maintaining fiscal security is crucial for the health of the UT System and its ability to pursue its educational mission. It would be reasonable for the Regents to develop some of the Tract for shopping centers and non-student housing. But instead of a spa-hotel, UT could build more student housing and class space.
The current proposals go way too far when they compromise the Brackenridge Field Laboratory. Ironically, while the Regents claim to be looking for ways to further the University’s educational mission, they will seriously damage the education and research of UT if they choose to interfere in the work of the laboratory.
The lab is used annually by 15 faculty, 20 graduate students and 300 undergraduate students from UT as well as faculty and students from Saint Edwards University, Concordia University and Austin Community College, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
The tract is also home to 163 species of birds, 19 types of mammals, 377 types of plants, 60 species of ants and 1,200 moths and butterflies. Moreover, the site continues to play host to groundbreaking scientific research and discoveries that put UT on the map nationwide.
Reducing the acreage of the site will reduce the amount of field research biologists can do there. Moving the site to a recommended location on the Colorado River will make it impossible for faculty and students with classes on the main campus to use it on a daily basis. Either plan will undoubtably limit the educational and research potential of
the site.
While the Board of Regents must reevaluate their use of the Brackenridge Tract to ensure that it is being used to its fullest potential in furthering the academic mission of the University, if they accept either of the proposals from Cooper, Robertson & Partners, they will compromise that mission.
The proposals submitted ignore the interests of neighbors, students and faculty and offer a declining quality of life for Austin as a whole. The era of unrestrained greed is over and Austinites would do well to examine any new proposals that increase urban density NOW before it's too late.