Students familiar with University of Wisconsin - La Crosse's Growth, Quality, and Access plan know that now is an exciting time to attend this university. And with the new stadium project moving along ahead of schedule, groundbreaking for a massive new academic building planned for next spring, and new student housing also being designed, those in charge of finding money to fund the projects have had their hands full. At last week's Student Association meeting, Mike Desmond, fundraising leader with the UW-L Foundation, said that fundraising for the in-progress stadium complex has reached a benchmark fundraising goal for phase one of the project of $13.5 million from donors. "That does not include your (the student body's) $2.5 million, nor does it include the $600,000 from the state," Desmond added. So, in total, $16.6 million has been raised from various sources, which funds the first phase of the project, even considering inaccurate initial bids from the contractors. "We've got you to thank for that," Desmond offered. "It was the student body that got this thing going with their initial pledge of $2.5 million," Desmond said in reference to last year's Student Association vote to contribute the hefty sum to the stadium project. "If that would not have happened, there would be no stadium being built right now." According to Desmond, "Phase Two has been put on the back burner…because of pressure to raise funds for the academic building". The new academic building has been in the planning stages for some time and is "central to the mission of this University", said Al Trapp, Acting President of the UW-L Foundation. The new academic building will occupy one city block and will be "a 180,000 square-foot building with 44 classrooms and two auditoriums…it will be right in the center of campus…we consider this building to be the single largest construction project on this campus" in the one hundred years the university has been in existence, Trapp said. It is the centerpiece of the Growth, Quality, and Access agenda set forward by the University last year. Fundraising for the new building totals $2.73 million, with a goal of $6 million by spring of 2009. Reaching this benchmark would ensure bank credit of a further $6 million and more funds from the state. This new project, Trapp said, is Chancellor Joe Gow's central priority because all of UW-L's new students under the university's Growth, Quality, and Access agenda would benefit from this new Centennial Hall. The UW-L Foundation-the primary fundraising body for such projects and a separate entity from the university-has been stretched thin by two projects of such magnitude, but Trapp maintained that despite the huge challenge, current and future projects will make history. The new, yet-unnamed academic building will be built at the current site of Baird, Trowbridge, and Wilder Halls, displacing several hundred on-campus students beds. When asked about the displacement of student housing, Chancellor Gow said "a lot of wonderful things happen" in residence halls. Gow said student housing will be replaced in the interim by further apartment building construction by area landlords. With new residence halls planned to be completed by 2011, the university should be able to add 200 student beds by 2010 and another 200 by 2011, adding 100 more beds than are currently available. Trapp concluded that, for the UW-L Foundation, fundraising efforts in the community continue and that this is a "very, very exciting time and a very, very challenging time," in the 100-year history of UW-La Crosse.
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