After months of planning, Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan is nearly complete, defining what construction projects the University can undertake over the upcoming decade. The plan has laudable new goals, such as the creation of student space in New South and improvements to Kehoe Field. It also includes projects from the 2000 Campus Plan that were never completed, like an addition to Lauinger Library and the construction of the new science building.
Will these projects be completed this decade? We have no way of knowing. Georgetown has not hinted where it will place its resources.
The University needs to indicate which projects will be prioritized, and which will be better left alone. Moreover, administrators should choose the projects that would benefit its students, rather than kowtow to every unreasonable demand of the University’s neighbors.
Although undergraduate enrollment will be capped at 6,000 students, the 2010 Plan proposes increasing the graduate student enrollment from 5,500 to 8,700 students, a 58 percent increase. That also means more than 3,200 more students will be looking for study space in Lauinger Library. Frequently filled beyond capacity during finals, Lauinger cannot accomodate more students without an expansion. The University recognized this problem in 2000 when it included it in that year’s plan for the decade, but here we are again, back in the same place as we were a decade ago—just with more graduate students crowding the cubicles.
On the other side of the equation, the University would be better off ignoring the proposed rerouting of GUTS buses. To allay neighbor concerns about the impact of buses driving past their townhouses, GUTS has tried a few new routes since last spring. The 2010 Plan aims to use the Canal Road exit as often as possible. For the Rossyln route, this means removing the stop at the Car Barn. Worse, for the Dupont Circle route, it means trips that are even longer than the current off-peak Wisconsin-to-Massachusetts Avenue route.
But instead of clarifying to students the importance and relative priority of the next decade’s projects, University administrators scheduled the single open house for students to view the 2010 Plan just before the first home basketball game of the season—and worse, only announced the event one day before.
Georgetown’s failure to complete every goal it set in 2000 is understandable. But for the next ten years, the University should make clear which projects it wants to complete first. Improving student space––in Lauinger, Kehoe, or New South––is an admirable goal, but intent mean nothing if the University doesn’t come through.
