Aug. 18

That Hurt

By Dean Dad

Last week I was in a meeting with the college controller – the money guy – who mentioned that this July’s gas and electric bill for the college was forty percent higher than last July’s. (And this isn’t one of the really huge cc’s, either.) Over the course of a year, that’s roughly half a million dollars extra on what, in the short term, is really a non-optional expense.

Ouch.

The increase was almost entirely at the ‘rate’ level, rather than the ‘use’ level. Which means that unless we have a really mild winter, we’re hosed. And while any given winter may or may not be relatively mild, over the years, there will be some nasty ones.

Since we aren’t in a part of the country that’s awash in money – Wyoming is looking better and better – we can’t just dip into the magical replenishing money pot and either pay the bills without incident or rebuild the campus to be greener. Yes, we consider energy efficiency on those rare occasions when we can build, but in between, there are real limits to what we can realistically do. (This is especially true given the age of many of the main buildings.) And the weather will do what it will do.

Community colleges generally are in an awkward position when it comes to energy use. Most cc’s don’t have dorms, which is both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that we have fewer buildings to heat, cool, and maintain, but it’s bad in the sense that a true measure of our carbon footprint includes students commuting to and from campus. (In four years in the dorms at Snooty Liberal Arts College, I never had a car, but I never missed a class.) We generally don’t have the massive athletics facilities or student life compounds, either. What we do have is essential, and therefore devilishly hard to cut. And since our per-student aid (and tuition) is much lower than our counterparts’, our extra efficiency carries no payoff. It’s simply assumed as a baseline. When you’re already running with minimal slack, external shocks are that much harder to absorb.

(To make matters worse, our operating aid is actually being cut at the same time. Income down, expenses up. Double ouch. And don’t even get me started on health insurance…)

This kind of money is particularly hard to come by, since it doesn’t typically attract the attention of philanthropists. ("These BTU’s brought to you by…") It has to come out of the operating budget, which is the same budget that pays salaries (and repels donors). We can’t float bond issues for operating expenses. Politicians are sometimes willing to throw ‘capital’ money our way – that is, construction – but operating budgets are largely considered our problem. How, exactly, we’re supposed to use those buildings goes unaddressed.

Grumble.

Administrators catch a lot of flak for championing online classes, but honestly, if we were to move the Saturday classes online and shut down the classroom buildings on Saturdays, that would save a meaningful chunk of change. It’s not ideal, of course, but neither is cutting a half-dozen positions to pay the gas bill.

Comments

what’s the temp?

As I read this in my freezing office on the campus of Public Urban Research U., I have to wonder just what temp you keep your buildings? For years, I have quietly worked to get administrators to be more “Jimmy Carter-ish” with the thermostats. Does it really need to be 70 in here when it’s 90 outside? We’re all sitting here with hot drinks, sweaters, and even heaters in our cubes, so there’s even extra utility costs with that. Why do buildings have to be so cold in the summer and so warm in the winter? I’ve known people at multiple schools who open their windows in both summer and winter to try to equalize the temps a little, and THAT is wasteful! Let’s all be a little “greener” and be more comfortable, too!

Elizabeth, at 1:35 pm EDT on August 19, 2008

This seems to be a classic example of the problem with current institutional thinking at colleges and universities. Elites have created a problem by underfunding the basic operations of public institutions and supporting building campaigns that funnel money to their cronies, the local developers. Administrators, as a result of the corporate takeover of society, then instinctively consider it pragmatic to adopt the corporate response (externalize the cost of heating the classroom by using online courses to shift the cost to the students in their homes or the retail shops in which they access the internet).

Perhaps a better solution (and one that still has all the flash of advanced technology — hooray!) is to convince donors to fund a different kind of building campaign. How would a Mr.-Too-Rich-For-Society’s-Good Memorial Wind/Solar Farm sound for campus?

Unemployed Academic, Shifting the Frame, at 2:00 pm EDT on August 19, 2008

Not to

...ignore the substance of your post or dismiss the collective frustration of all who struggle to pay for the necessities at community colleges across the land... BUT Elizabeth spoke for me and my colleagues, as we shiver through summer and sweat through winter and wonder WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? If I had a window, I’d open it...or perhaps be tempted to jump.

WhyAmISurprised?, at 10:25 am EDT on August 20, 2008