2019 Gumbo final - Book - Page 86
Military Makeover
Fighting for Repairs
he Military Science Building isn’t much different than
any other aging building on campus--except that
the military and ROTC programs were integral to the
University’s founding. Now, almost 160 years later, the
building is in disrepair, and these programs receive little support
from the University.
“Our position on campus used to be deeply rooted,” said
Johnathon Price, military science senior and ROTC recruiting
officer. “The Corps has been pushed into this corner that we’re
in, and now we’re sitting here struggling to keep our head above
water.”
The roof leaks constantly and moisture gathers on the window sills,
said Laura Morrow, interim executive director of Facility Services.
The two cannons that once marked the building as home to the
country’s future men and women in uniform have since been
removed, Price said. The hallways are filled with buckets collecting
water from the leaking roof on rainy days, but moisture damage
persists despite efforts to catch the water.
There’s a gaping hole in the parade field behind the building
where the Corps of Cadets and ROTC students train.
But it’s not just the Military Science Building that’s been pushed to
the backburner. As the building and facilities decline, so does the
program’s prominence on campus. Prized University traditions like
the march down Victory Hill, LSU Student Ambassadors and the
Golden Girls are now absent of their military roots.
The Corps of Cadets commander used to hold a place in the
student body president’s cabinet, but the last three administrations
have not included a place for the commander, Price said.
The Corps of Cadets doesn’t receive funding from the University
“despite being the sole reason this university exists,” Price said.
William Tecumseh Sherman established the University in 1860 as
a military seminary, one of a few land grant universities around the
nation founded to develop military and agricultural programs.
The exposed piping in the yard is the result of two major domestic
waterline failures that occurred in the beginning of January,
Morrow said. The domestic waterline supplies water to the campus
for use as drinking water, sink water and more. Despite the
failure, Morrow said Facility Services was able to minimize water
downtime.
The failure occurred when Facility Services began replacing
old pipes behind the Military Science Building and along South
Stadium Drive. The old pipe, which is anywhere from 40 to 80
years old, couldn’t accommodate connection to the new pipe,
Morrow said.
The parade field behind the building, now obstructed by exposed
piping and shallow holes from pooling water, serves as the ROTC’s
only training area, Price said. Students can’t access the rappel
tower in the training yard either.
“The area is now an active construction zone, but we don’t have
anywhere [else] to go,” Price said.
Morrow said the pipe repairs are almost finished, and she’s
working on a plan to level and re-sod the yard due to the water
damage. But Facility Services is balancing the yard repair with a
$900,000 roofing project that recently began and will continue for
the next two and a half months.
Morrow said she expects the roofing project to yield “dramatic
improvements” in the building. However, she said the roof and
pipe repair are only a band aid for the almost 60-year-old building
and its $11 million of deferred maintenance.
“Laura has to be very strategic with the way she spends
maintenance dollars,” said Tammy Millican, executive director of
facility and property oversight. “Do you continue to put money into
building that has deferred maintenance costs and needs that are
as much as the value of the building?”
But Facility Services is playing a balancing game with buildings like
Military Science whose deferred maintenance cost almost equals
the cost of a new building, Morrow said. And this building is just
one of the many on campus to need renovations with a total of
$720 million worth of deferred maintenance needs across LSU.
“Some of this stuff is minor but when you add this stuff together
and consider that the space will likely move to a different building,
we have to balance that with all the other hundreds of single story
buildings and their issues,” Morrow said. “Then [we have to] try
not to waste [or] spend money in the short term when the building
might go away, so it’s a balancing act.”
Facility Services has a deferred maintenance list detailing all the
repairs needed across all the campus buildings, Millican said. But
limited funds only allows them to respond to emergencies like
waterline failures.
“So we’re reactive and we don’t get much time to be proactive,”
Morrow said.
The deferred maintenance across campus and the lack of funds
to complete long-term repairs is just another consequence of
cuts to higher education across the state, Millican said. There was
a period of time when Facility Services at the University didn’t
receive any deferred maintenance funding.
Despite the ROTC being one of the the longest standing student
organizations, as of 2016 it wasn’t recognized by the University
as an official student organization and had to re-establish its
programs, Price said.
The University used to require every able-bodied male student to
serve in the ROTC or Corps of Cadets programs for at least two
years, Price said. However, the mandatory two-year conscription
was revoked in the late 1960s. Since then, the Corps has
decreased from around 7,000 students to 400 current students.
The University’s founding, military science and ROTC programs
are similar to its sister university, Texas A&M, Price said. The two
programs developed similarly and with identical rank structures
until the '60s. But as the University cut funding, Texas A&M’s
programs continued to excel while LSU’s diminished.
Price said Texas A&M is now considered a senior military college
and that its well-funded and rigorous military science program is a
selling point while recruiting new students. But the University has
difficulty recruiting new students due to lack of funding and poor
facilities.
“LSU made it very obvious that that’s not the direction that they
wanted to take, and now we’re to the point that we don’t have any
funding from the University,” Price said. “I’m the recruiting officer,
and I can’t recruit the best in the state.”
Price said the equipment is also outdated. Most of what the
University has available to military science students is surplus
supplies that the program acquired on its own. Price said some
of the equipment dates back to what his father used in the army
during the Gulf War in the '90s.
As the University prepares to update its campus over the next 10
to 25 years, Price said military science students are concerned
that their program’s needs won’t be considered during the new
construction.
A contract agreement between the Department of Defense, ROTC
program and the host school requires the University to maintain
adequate facilities for the ROTC and Corps of Cadets programs.
But Price said he’s concerned with the lack of plans for a new
indoor range, rappel tower and parade field, all of which are
considered necessary facilities for the military science program.
Millican and Morrow said the University’s Master Plan does include
relocating the military science program to a newer building, which
will provide the students with the necessary training facilities and
equipment.
The Master Plan is a “high level view” over the next few decades,
Millican said, so there isn’t a specific timeline for the military
science relocation yet. But she said it’s likely the program will be
relocated to a building nearby and that it will share that building
with another program.
“We don’t have the ability to say this year, this group will move to
this place, we just know that in the future, that group will not be in
that building,” Millican said.
Story // Sheridan Wall
Photo // Bella Biondini
Design // Rachel Hurt
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