As classes start, St. Mary’s College battles charge of elitism

Governor warns of community relations problem

Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN St. Mary’s College of Maryland freshman Andrew Surgent of Huntingtown washes the Ridge Volunteer Fire Department’s boat Saturday as the new students split into groups and volunteered at several locations in St. Mary’s County. College classes resumed Tuesday. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

But before the students arrived on campus some community members and St. Mary’s County’s state senator traveled to Annapolis last month to protest some of the college’s recent and future building projects on campus, as well as a new building in Alba, Italy, that will be used as a satellite campus. Sen. Roy Dyson (D-St. Mary’s, Calvert, Charles) also accused the college of becoming an elitist institution, a charge college officials deny.

The exchange resulted in a warning from the governor to college officials that they have a community relations problem in St. Mary’s County.

The college’s new core curriculum, which goes into effect starting with this year’s freshmen, aims to have all students study abroad sometime during their time at St. Mary’s College. The college, as part of this initiative, is leasing a building in Alba for free for 10 years, which was approved by Maryland Board of Public Works last week.

But the college will spend about $400,000 on renovating the 3,000-square-foot facility, which includes two classrooms, music practice rooms, computing space and offices.

‘‘This could become a very expensive endeavor,” Dyson said of the Alba facility, according to a transcript from the Aug. 20 board of public works meeting.

Dyson and some nearby residents of the college asked the board to defer approval of the lease until more concerns could be answered, including will the price increase over the years, who will check to the safety of the building and who will pay insurance for the students overseas. ‘‘I don’t think we should be involved in a foreign campus,” Dyson said last week in an interview. He said a public college should not spend taxpayer money on buildings outside of the country, adding that St. Mary’s College has strayed from its roots as an affordable public institution.

‘‘The college, they are where they are today because of me and a few others,” Dyson said.

During his remarks in Annapolis, he went on to say the college has become ‘‘very elitist,” and was concerned about tuition rising at the college.

State legislators provided extra money to all of Maryland’s public colleges and universities except St. Mary’s College so tuitions could be frozen the last few years. St. Mary’s College is funded through a block grant from the state, which has increased but not enough to exercise a tuition freeze, college officials said.

Statistics provided by the college show that about 70 percent of students receive financial aid (two-thirds of which is based on need) and that about a quarter of the students are from the first generations in their families to attend college.

‘‘It’s very difficult to verify,” Dyson said last week in response to the numbers.

According to U.S. News and World Report, St. Mary’s College covers less of its tuition for need-based students on average than most other Maryland colleges and universities, Dyson said Tuesday.

One in 10 students at St. Mary’s College, or 208 last year, was from St. Mary’s County. In the fall 2007, there were 1,655 Maryland residents and 347 from out of state, including 75 foreign students from three dozen different countries.

The school also boasts the highest graduation rate among Maryland’s public institutions of higher education, a rate that holds true across all races.

‘‘You will never find a student who feels excluded” at St. Mary’s College, Maggie O’Brien, the college’s president, said last week. She denied the elitist charges and questioned why Dyson would want the college to become more like Salisbury University, as he said at the public works meeting.

While the college has highlighted recent stormwater management improvements and energy-saving building techniques, Dyson and members of the group have said the campus threatens the natural and historic land and water around the state’s first capital.

Dyson called tree cutting at the campus ‘‘absolutely outrageous” and said the college should not have been allowed to do that. He reiterated the citizens group’s sentiments that there were other places to put the college’s new rowing center and river center, which sparked a controversy last year.

Dyson said there were other areas that belonged to the St. Mary’s City Commission that were available for the relocation of the boathouse. He also said the college should not encroach on historic areas in St. Mary’s City.

Gladys Siegel, a member of the Citizens for the Preservation of Historic St. Mary’s City, said at the meeting that the college linked the group to alleged threats of arson made against the new rowing center and attempted to keep the group from holding a public meeting at the Ridge firehouse.

Siegel said each member of the group has been a staunch supporter of the college, but the ‘‘desecration of the land and shoreline of St. Mary’s River” must be stopped.

The college plans to construct bulkheads, a boat ramp, a rowing launch pier and a large L-shaped pier that would double as a wave break next spring and summer. A second phase would involve a living shoreline, which would use grasses and other more natural methods instead of bulkheads to stop erosion north of the St. John’s Pond inlet.

‘‘We’ve had, I think, good dialogue with the various review agencies and those agencies believe this is a sound project,” Chip Jackson, the college’s associate vice president of planning and facilities, said to the board of public works last week.

The college needed approval from the board of public works for the contractor before Sept. 30 or the federal funds would expire. While the board of public works did approve the project, Dyson and the group of citizens spoke against the shoreline protection and structures.

‘‘I don’t think bulkheading is the way to go. Besides, it would be ugly as hell down at Maryland’s first capital,” Dyson said.

The group asked the board of public works to put a moratorium on all development at the college until ‘‘the public has had time to obtain the information it needs.”

Siegel also criticized the college’s newly formed capital design advisory committee, which she said was stacked with members associated with the college and Historic St. Mary’s City. ‘‘What is needed is an independent advisory committee external to the institution with an ex-officio member of their staff serving as a liaison between the committee and the college,” she said.

The college has acquired 2.2 acres north of campus as part of a viewshed preservation effort, a purchase also approved by the board of public works. Jackson said the college plans to let the land return into a natural forest.

There are several parcels of land between the Somerville property and the entrance to the college.

While the board of public works approved all of the college’s request, the testimony prompted some remarks from Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).

‘‘President O’Brien, I think you have some community relations problems,” Gov. O’Malley said, according to the meeting transcript. ‘‘As long as you have those problems [people concerned are] going to come here ... And this is where we become the point of appeal when people think they’re not being listened to, or heard, or when the institution is acting in a cavalier manner, or contrary to public policy.”

While state Treasurer Nancy Kopp said she agreed with the governor’s observation of a community relations problem, she added, ‘‘I think St. Mary’s had done a very, very good job of what we intended them to do, which was essentially to be a unique model of sort of a quasi-private public institution.”