Patrick’s higher education bill would fund SSC library

SALEM – The recent facelift at Salem State College is in line to continue in coming years as Gov. Deval Patrick announced plans to renovate and modernize the school’s library as part of a $2 billion higher education bill proposed Wednesday.The bill still needs to pass through legislature and details are not completely finalized, but both government and educators across the state are optimistic that the plan will come to fruition by the summer of 2008.Patrick’s legislation includes authorization for new building or renovation projects at every one of the Commonwealth’s community and state colleges and at each of the University of Massachusetts’ campuses.Locally, the Salem State modernization project received the highest amount of proposed funding for a North Shore school, while North Shore Community College received funds for a proposed $30 million Allied Nursing Building at its Danvers Campus. No projects or repairs are in line for NSCC’s Lynn campus.Patrick’s legislation includes $1 billion in authorization dedicated to capital improvements at the five University of Massachusetts campuses and $1 billion dedicated for improvements to the state and community colleges.The largest single project designated in the bill is an $89 million modernization project at the Bridgewater State College’s Conant Science Center, and a $51 million addition and renovation to the Hemenway Science Center at Framingham State College.For Salem State, the library proposal is just the latest in a series of advances for the school in the past five years. The library would follow recent construction of a new central campus dormitory accompanied by a new business and music wing in the old Sylvania building, along with new traffic and parking projects and a state-of-the art field turf athletic field next to the O’Keefe Center athletic building.SSC President Patricia Maguire Meservey said modernizing the five-story library is essential in moving the college forward, as the current structure, aged over 30 years, is simply no longer adequate in serving the modern student.”We had put the capitol bid in to renovate the library because it is in need of serious repair,” said Meservey. “We are looking to provide something that is more suited for the 21st century with group study rooms and electronic access to information. There is also a structural component as the building itself is very old with leaks in the ceilings, so we anticipate a major improvement.”Meservey said tentative plans are to renovate the existing library building, but an independent study is underway to determine whether it would be more cost effective to build a new structure entirely.That study will not be complete until March of 2008, which is when Meservey said she would expect to hear definitive word from the governor, although she stressed that any timeline at this point is pure speculation.The Board of Education, the Board of Trustees of the University of Massachusetts, the respective campuses and the Commonwealth’s capital facilities agency identified specific projects included in the bill as the top capital improvement priorities, while other portions of the bill are not designated for specific projects in order to preserve flexibility to address emergency capital investment needs and new capital investment priorities that will emerge over the next 10 years.Meservey said she would be in contact with the state for additional improvement projects needed in other aging buildings on campus when the funds become available.”We have multiple priorities for modernization,” she said. “We have science labs that are in need of work, along with our performance arts facilities. We will be looking at all of our priorities.”In conjunction with the administration’s increased capital investment in state and community colleges, the Board of Higher Education will eliminate its requirement for campuses to provide matching funds for state capital dollars, relieving the pressure to increase student charges t