Library project still on schedule

Kings Court and English House residents who awaken every morning to the sound of jack-hammers at the construction site of the new Law School Library will be subject to the noise until late this summer, Law School Dean Colin Diver said this week. But Vice President for Facilities Management Arthur Gravina said last week that the project is on time and on budget. "The Law School [project] has been reasonably successful," Gravina said. "This is a magnificent project. I give credit to the management of the Law School and the dean for making tough financial decisions. [The project] is going to work both programatically and in terms of instruction." In 1988, the Law School drafted a five-year plan proposing the construction of a new facility dedicated to library and classroom space and renovation of the Law School's main building along with other changes in the school's operation. But Diver said that while certain goals have been met in areas such as fund-raising, the five-year plan itself is "behind schedule." The Law School published a self-study in October to comply with accreditation requirements and to assess the current position of the school, Diver added. The library was originally expected to cost $22.2 million, but the project budget was expanded to $28 million four years ago, Divers said. "I'm still confident that the whole project will come in under [the $28 million] budget," Diver said. But according to the self-study, the new library will cost $890,000 in operation and maintenance in fiscal year 1994, an amount the Law School may have trouble absorbing. "A cost increase of this magnitude will require a very significant increase in revenue or reduction in other expenses, or a combination of both," the report states. The $5.6 million renovation of the Law School's main building has been deferred until financial constraints, caused by state budget cuts to University funding, are alleviated, Diver added. "We've done a small portion of the reconstruction and renovation, a couple hundred thousand dollars worth," Diver said. "But the big chunks lie ahead and we're holding off on many of those." In its five-year plan, the Law School had hoped to increase its annual giving in alumni donations by 50 percent by this year and Diver said the school has met that goal. The 1988 plan also projected that income from the Law School's endowment should increase from $531,000 to $1.1 million by the end of this fiscal year. Diver said that the school had met this goal and that it was well ahead of its 1988 goals for the University's $1 billion capital fund. "We initially set a goal of raising $38.5 million, but we quickly realized we could meet that goal easily so we raised the goal to $45 million," Divers said. "We have now met that goal as well and have raised the target number to $52 million." In 1988, the Law School stated that it wanted to increase faculty compensation in order to attract more faculty and help retain well-known faculty already teaching at the school, according to the five-year plan. Diver said he believes that the compensation packages that the Law School now has in place have succeeded in increasing competitiveness with those of rival law schools. Another part of the 1988 plan called for an increase in the amount of financial aid money available to law students in an attempt both to increase the diversity of the school's student body and to prevent students from being forced by heavy debt burden to take high-paying positions instead of government or public service posts. The Law School has increased its financial aid budget signifigantly over the past five years and last year alone instituted an 11-percent increase, according to the self-study. The self-study says that a new five-year plan will be published by June 30.

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