By Victoria Keraj
Alan Gilbert, Senior Vice President (VP) for Finance and Administration, hosted an open forum to update Brooklyn College (BC) students, staff, and faculty on the capital projects that have been, or will be, underway, along with the school’s budget for these projects.
An email sent by Gilbert emphasized a desire to inform the BC community on work being done on various facilities. As part of that effort, monthly open forums were announced to be held.
Gilbert stated that some projects discussed were already planned before the pandemic. “Do keep in mind, these are not just new things that popped up. These were things we’ve been planning for quite some time and […] now the campus is not only going to hear about what we’re doing but they’re going to see progress.”
With a total of $74.5 million (M) for planned capital projects, not including future funds that have been requested, the open forum went in-depth on how these funds will be used efficiently and effectively. The largest project on campus in development is Ingersoll/Roosevelt Design phase 1. As part of the plan, 20 rooms are to be renovated in Ingersoll and 16 rooms in Roosevelt. According to Gilbert, the plan is for the renovated rooms to look like the updated lecture hall in new Ingersoll 148.
$7.9M have been allocated for renovating Ingersoll lecture halls 1310 and 2310 to install Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), and make the rooms compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Construction is expected to start in 2026 and during the construction, no classes will take place in those rooms.
Adding HVAC was listed as a top priority during the presentation. There are plans to replace the existing HVAC system which is “pretty much over 50 years old,” explained Gilbert. In addition to HVAC, another item in need of replacement is the campus’s pipe system.
“Our piping was installed in around 1994,” Gilbert said. There are plans to replace the existing pipes to prevent steam leaks that were occurring on campus.
Along with this, there are also plans to address water leaks.“We have a significant capital project out there to fix roofs in many of our buildings, including the library, Boylan, etc.,” Gilbert stated. He also mentioned that the plan includes the installation of gutters and leaders.
In the presentation, BC’s efforts toward sustainability were also addressed. $15M have been given to BC from the NYS Environmental Bond ACT, which gave $150M in climate resiliency grants to college campuses.
“The environmental bond act funding is supporting clean energy initiatives and this […] is going to include a solar roof on one of our buildings and some geothermal work,” Gilbert said on the funds.
Also contributing to BC’s efforts to be more environmentally friendly is the school’s involvement in the Decarbonization Leadership Program. “The goal is to transition to low carbon or a carbon neutral economy by adopting cleaner energy sources,” Gilbert stated. He also mentioned an upcoming presentation that will be led by Carrie Sadovnik, director of Environmental Health and Safety, occurring later this semester with more information about the college’s clean energy initiatives.
There are also plans to repair the library’s exterior after an assessment of the damage was recently done. Gilbert stated that they are “[…] now working with the university and dormitory authority to bring a vendor in to do the repair,” although there is no time frame for when.
For technology upgrades on campus, $22M has been allocated. Included in technology upgrades are plans to improve the WiFi on campus. The school is currently working with the New York State Dormitory Authority (DASNY) to acquire a vendor to install new cabling in every building on campus except Roosevelt Hall, which will be undergoing extensive repairs.
The school will be replacing the fiber cables to improve network bandwidth. “Our fiber is old, more than a decade old. It’s failing,” Gilbert explained.
There are also plans to add cooling to places where IT equipment is kept. “That way we won’t be in a situation where we have to turn off critical computer networks, because we don’t want them to overheat and fry, and we lose valuable data,” Gilbert stated.
$15.7M have been allocated for upgrades to the school’s East Quad.
On the plans for the Quad, Gilbert made clear that he did not intend to “change the historic beauty of the quad.” He later said, “We’re not gonna make it modern, we’re gonna make it refreshed.” Plans to refurbish the East Quad include replacing old trees with smaller, more disease-resilient ones and to add various new shrubbery to the yard.
Gilbert said that his hopes are for construction to begin next spring and take up about two years. “Trees are gonna come down, […] it’s gonna be sad, but it’s gonna be amazing, because the end result is gonna be […] even more spectacular,” Gilbert stated.
After losing enrollment and $20M dollars from the budget and having to be designated as ‘high concern,’ BC now has a balanced budget and no longer has to abide by the 2-1 hiring restriction due to an enrollment growth of over $3M, though the school still has some restrictions. “We can’t open up the floodgates, but we don’t have the extra restrictions,” Gilbert explained.
The new state budget is to be released by April 1. The budget will reveal the amount of money to be allocated for CUNY and whether or not the PSC contract will be funded.
“The preliminary budgets showed us short of $34M CUNY-wide. A lot of lobbying, a lot of work has been going on since the preliminary governance budget,” Gilbert said on the projected budget. He specified that “[…] the BC specific budget usually comes out around sometime in June.”
Also shared in the presentation is that the school received 2M to renovate community spaces. “We’re gonna focus on student spaces now, but it’s really student, faculty, and staff.”
Gilbert also urged anyone who is interested in volunteering, or who wants to be a part of the school’s process of identifying spaces to be renovated, should reach out by emailing either him or Shamika Brathwaite, who is leading the committee for gathering feedback on CUNY spaces.
Throughout the presentation, Gilbert stressed that plans underway were aimed at making the campus more safer and sustainable.
“My ideal goal, and I call it a stretch goal, is that people come here and they don’t think about the facility. They don’t think about it because they’re working,” Gilbert stated. “I hope that people will start […] to see actual physical changes that will make their life on campus better and more comfortable, because the facility is so important.”