Pueblo and CSU Need to Work Together
January 24, 2014
As an Adjunct Professor at CSU-Pueblo this year I have had a relatively close-up view of the unfolding budget crisis. From where I stand neither the faculty nor the administration deserve much praise for the way they’ve conducted themselves. The administration has done a poor job of presenting and clarifying the budget picture and the faculty has held plenty of protest rallies but has offered very few thoughtful solutions. I find it disappointing that a University (and a larger University system) with so much talent to call upon has turned what could have been a creative problem solving challenge into something more akin to a congressional budget showdown.
What is clear, not just at CSU-Pueblo but across the country and not just in colleges but throughout the education system, is that what we’re doing for students isn’t working well enough. High schools are churning out graduates who aren’t prepared for college and colleges are churning out graduates who aren’t prepared for the work force. Teachers are asked to do too much with too little. Parents are expected to pay too much for tuition. Students are asked to navigate a system that emphasizes standardized test scores and grade point averages only to find a job market that only cares about real know-how. And the administrators in public institutions are stuck within a ridiculously complex bureaucracy that resembles something out of a fictional Alice in Wonderland world where we seem to have unlimited funds to build new facilities but never any money to invest in the people who create real value.
I read recently that CSU-Pueblo President Lesley Di Mare (who I think by the way is doing a good job; my guess is that she is stuck between a rock and a hard place with the CSU System on one side and CSU Pueblo on the other) stated that the millions slated for remodel of the Occhiato Center cannot be re-purposed to help address the budget shortfall. How will the CSU Pueblo Foundation feel if they spend loads of cash on a modern student center but then don’t have any students enrolling to enjoy these deluxe facilities? More teamwork is needed. And we should be focusing a lot more on successful long term student outcomes and a lot less on fancy facilities, especially since the University campus sits on a remote desert outpost where only minimal synergy with the community of Pueblo is possible.
At the end of the day, Pueblo and CSU-Pueblo are in the same boat. Both entities are spending too much on new construction with too little vision or thought paid to creating an *effective* environment where people want to live, learn, innovate and invest.
So, in the spirit of offering solutions and not just criticism, here are a few ideas that I will throw out there. My hope is that we can use this budget crisis as an opportunity for collaboration and innovation rather than trench digging and name calling. My approach to brainstorming is that all ideas are worth sharing but not all ideas are worth pursuing. So, you won’t hurt my feelings if you want to shoot down any of these ideas but I would encourage people to offer their own ideas along with any critique. The key is to get as many ideas as possible on the table for discussion, debate and analysis rather than becoming entrenched on 2 sides of only one plan.
Here goes. This assumes that instead of spending money to improve campus facilities and amenities across the road from Belmont, we reallocate funds to build a more innovative and appealing learning community where students will want to enroll and stay after graduation.
Idea 1. Create a Pueblo think tank that conducts applied research on key issues we’re facing in Southern Colorado. Maybe call it the Pueblo Prospertity Institute. Don’t spend a penny on a new facility but dangle a bunch of money out there to recruit the very best minds in Urban Planning, Water Resources, Economic Development, etc for fixed term (maybe 1 year with an option for a 2nd year?) appointment during which they must think, talk, write (but all publications must be freely available to the public – no peer review obscurity or indecipherable ivory tower mumbo-jumbo) and research one or more key issues facing Southern Colorado. Do not restrict the search to professor types! Think tank members should come from industry, government, academia, non-profit. They might come from other parts of the US or from abroad. Anywhere and everywhere. Find the best people, period. Pay them well. And listen to their suggestions. In addition to thoughtful discussion we may just attract more people, good students included, to Pueblo once these superstars figure out how nice the weather is here and how little housing costs.
Idea 2. Bring College Hockey to Downtown Pueblo. Instead of a fancy indoor lacrosse stadium located at the desert outpost why not renovate/expand or simply utilize (heaven forbid we forgo luxury boxes) the Pueblo Plaza Ice Arena and build a quality CSU Pueblo College Hockey team (can John Wristen coach hockey too?) with all home games in the heart of Pueblo. This would create opportunity for restaurants, hotels and other businesses downtown and improve the overall quality of life in Pueblo because people love hockey games. Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to have a team that could compete against Colorado College and Denver University? This is how community pride is built. I will commit to season tickets right now if we can get CC and DU and a few other top programs to come to Pueblo. Maybe we can do the same for baseball at Runyon Field? How about Basketball at Central High? I know. Massari is a lovely facility but have you noticed the empty seats? If you price tickets correctly, you would pack the house for a good college basketball game in the heart of the Mesa Junction. Teams in the RMAC would be terrified to play in Pueblo where local fans raise the roof. Gee, you might just build a fan base along the way.
Idea 3. Create a world class Biological Sciences Campus on the State Fairgrounds. Offer an Animal Sciences (Veterinary, Zoology, etc) program in one of the many existing facilities that is left underutilized except for 1 week per year. Build lab, classroom and meeting facilities where our brilliant scientific minds who practice medicine at St. Mary-Corwin and Parkview can incubate new technologies and business ideas. Start small but think big. Maybe the Nursing School could move in and eventually grow to include a Medical School and a Dental School with nearby access to hospitals where graduates could apply their skills. Heck, while we’re at it why don’t we knock over the Berlin Wall structure surrounding the State Fairgrounds? I don’t mean to suggest that we give in to the snobby elitists in Denver who want to move the State Fair to Denver Metro; rather, why not host a State Fair where we open up the entire community? Music events not just at the fairgrounds but also on the River Walk? Carnival rides not just at the fairgrounds but also downtown near the El Pueblo Museum. Cotton candy at Taffy’s on Abriendo for a reasonable price instead of paying the inflated price within the fairgrounds. And, as an aside, can we stop looking at the State Fair as a money making opportunity for a few people and instead look at it as a community event for everyone in Colorado? Stop charging ridiculous prices for admissions and food. And stop this crazy card payment system that is only useful for locking up people’s change rather than providing value. It’s absurd. Same goes for all of Pueblo’s “Public Event Industrial Complex” festivals. Here’s a news flash for Pueblo’s community leadership: the reason that attendance is down or flat at the State Fair and the Chile Fest and others is because it costs too damn much and offers too little value. Duh. Give people a good reason to come to Pueblo where they’ll spend money with local businesses.
Idea 4. Build a giant Solar Farm near the CSU-Pueblo campus. Allow faculty and students to participate in all phases of the solar farm, from planning and construction to on-going maintenance. It’s an opportunity to capitalize on Pueblo’s uniquely abundant solar resources while also creating an innovative applied learning environment for students. Perhaps the solar farm can power the entire campus and save a bundle? Perhaps the solar farm can become so productive that we can send Black Hills back to South Dakota where they can fleece their own neighbors with ever-increasing electricity rates rather than robbing our community. Here’s a thought. Maybe we can build an expansive solar farm north of Pueblo in the area slated to become “Pueblo Springs Ranch” so that, instead of short-term construction jobs that produce sprawl and traffic congestion (with all profit going to an out-of-state real estate development company), we can collect/produce solar energy and sell it to residents in Colorado Springs and Denver. Do you want prosperity in Pueblo? Well, instead of building another Pueblo Exurban Wasteland residential development that creates a larger footprint for dwindling government resources to manage why don’t we actually produce something of value and then keep the wealth in our own community. We could establish something like the Alaska Permanent Fund whereby residents of Pueblo not only enjoy more reasonably priced home-grown solar power but also receive a regular dividend for revenue that comes in if and when we export energy. I can hear the conservative voices, “Government isn’t the answer – let the private sector create a competitive market place.” Well, I’m sick of the private sector monsters with their all too familiar “too big to value customers” approach to business. Sometimes government has a role to play when the “invisible hand” fails. I’ll take the Pueblo Board of Waterworks over Black Hills and/or Xcel any day of the week. That said, let’s keep local government agencies and union mentalities out of the way where they won’t interfere. We can have a cooperative structure where residents elect a board of directors who ensure proper governance and profit returned to residents so that the institution will exist for the people of Pueblo, rather than being held captive by employees who feel entitled to life-long employment and overly generous retirement benefits.
So, there are my ideas. Crazy? Probably sounds completely insane to the old guard in Pueblo who think the answer to our woes will come from some big company that brings in 1,000 low-skill, low-wage jobs. You know the story – we provide tax incentives and they come in for a few years and then leave for greener pastures after the tax benefits expire. No, my friends. Pueblo is on the move but our current mindset regarding economic growth needs to be abandoned. Instead, we must learn to create and produce our way to prosperity. We have to think like entrepreneurs.
CSU-Pueblo can help lead the way by championing innovation rather than in-fighting.
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I couldn’t agree more with this statement: “…a system that emphasizes standardized test scores and grade point averages only to find a job market that only cares about real know-how.” Well played.
The next education paradigm that doesn’t include robotic learning via standardized tests can’t get here fast enough.
Anyways. Good article. Given that I’m moving to Kalamazoo, MI this piece got me thinking about Western Michigan University and it’s place in Kalamazoo’s ecosystem. Some of the same things you mentioned about CSU-Pueblo’s isolation from the City of Pueblo struck me as similar to a few things about Western that irked me as an undergraduate there in the late ’90’s. WMU, though much closer to the core of Kalamazoo seemed back then to be isolated by design from the city that surrounded it. I also never got the sense that WMU and Kalamazoo really worked together for the region’s benefit economically.
Then, towards the end of my stay at WMU, Justin’s aforementioned phenomenon of the “Campus Building Boom” began to take shape. Green space on campus gave way to construction yards and former parking fields turned into buildings overnight it seemed. Important to note in Kalamazoo though was the use of a large parcel of land two miles from campus that became Western’s Business, Technology, and Research Park with a new home for it’s large, but scattered, College of Engineering as it’s anchor. Also built on this campus in it’s own building was the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center, a collaborative institution for marrying Kalamazoo-area economic goals with University and City resources (and regional).
Then I left. Graduate school, jobs, kids, and nine years in the Ann Arbor area. Now I am on the cusp of returning to Kalamazoo permanently, where my wife will be starting a new job at the Rubbermaid Corporation who decided to consolidate their entire North American R&D operations into a new facility located where? WMU Business, Technology, and Research Park.
What a difference a dozen of years made! The large area around WMU’s College of Engineering has been transformed. New buildings dot this campus for companies local and multi-national. However, and more importantly, the City of Kalamazoo has changed drastically in that time. Because of efforts to simultaneously build the new engineering campus and form a collaborative relationship between the school and the city, the core of Kalamazoo is booming as is much of the outlying city. Although the engineering campus is further from downtown then the core WMU campus, WMU and the city have appeared to make significant strides in integrating the campus into the surrounding neighborhoods, especially towards downtown.
WMU is currently building a new School of Medicine right in downtown and has various other institutes and outfits in the downtown area that weren’t there when I was in college. The energy surrounding such projects along with the city’s efforts to revitalize itself has created a “self-exciting” magnetic force in Kalamazoo and the surrounding county. The downtown is active, people and businesses are now moving into Kalamazoo, and there is genuine excitement about, not just the city’s, but the county’s future. That was absent when I was attending Western, but boy, am I excited to return!
Justin, you are absolutely spot on with your outlook and recommendations for CSU Pueblo and it’s home, the City of Pueblo. CSU-P needs to definitely set it’s sites on central Pueblo as far as new construction goes. Will it cost more? Yes. Will there be even more bureaucracy if entities as large as CSU-P and the city (and others) collaborate? Yes. Was Rome built in a day? Nope.
Hopefully, I’ve presented Kalamazoo’s status as a forward looking indicator for Pueblo if it starts listening to input from outside voices. Kalamazoo is by no means Ann Arbor yet, with a tightly integrated campus-economy-community fabric, but no one’s to say whether it or Pueblo can’t or won’t be. Keep fighting the good fight!
Thanks Steve! Great to hear about all the good things happening in Kalamazoo. Maybe Kalamazoo can serve as a good example for us here in Pueblo? Thanks again! Cheers, Justin
[…] So, is Pueblo perfect? Of course not. Far from it. Like a lot of American cities, Pueblo is struggling economically. There aren’t enough good jobs. There is too much crime. Our public schools are failing too many students. Non-automotive transportation options are limited. Many of our neighborhoods could really use a face lift. And, currently our local University is experiencing a budget crisis. […]
Justin, I love each and every one of your ideas. This is my suggestion.
When going to Colorado Springs [or pretty much anywhere] there are quite a few markers drawing people on the road to various attractions. If there are any on the way towards Pueblo, they’re not real obvious. How about more that will attract travelers to the River Walk [the FREE River Walk] the 25 cent rides for the little ones in the park, the “World Famous Sloppers” [who cares if they are called Mexican hamburgers everywhere else?] And, hey, truly affordable real estate?
You see, most people, when they think of Pueblo, think what they have been conditioned to think, which is , “Pueblo, eww, armpit of Colorado.”
They need roadside invitations to stop by and see the incredible historic architecture, feel the welcoming and inclusiveness of its’ people.
I am actually NOT a big fan of billboards and excess signage, but, I think that Pueblo needs to do SOMETHING to neutralize all the negative perceptions people have, and, even if billboards nee to be utilized to attract people inm so be it.
Hi Vicky – I’m happy to allow the perception to live on in the minds of those in Northern Colorado who think they know it all. The joke is on them as they pay 3x-4x plus for housing while we enjoy better weather, less traffic and a more interesting culture. On the flip side perhaps they have a functional local government and local news media worth reading? Cheers, Justin
[…] I’ve stated in a previous post, the City of Pueblo and CSU-Pueblo have got to work together to improve our shared prospects and to provide better amenities for young people. The millennial […]
Justin, I am just Joe Average Citizen in Grand Junction and a local Realtor. I have lived, actually, in Fruita for 3-1/2 years, having moved here on in impulse from Anchorage, Alaska.
I am writing an open letter to some of our local leaders in Grand Junction, including a link to this blog post, crediting and excerpting your thoughts on the think tank idea. Please find below the content of my open letter. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Create a Pueblo think tank that conducts applied research on key issues we’re facing in Southern Colorado.
Maybe call it the Pueblo Prosperity Institute. Don’t spend a penny on a new facility but dangle a bunch of money out there to recruit the very best minds in Urban Planning, Water Resources, Economic Development, etc for fixed term (maybe 1 year with an option for a 2nd year?) appointment during which they must think, talk, write (but all publications must be freely available to the public – no peer review obscurity or indecipherable ivory tower mumbo-jumbo) and research one or more key issues facing Southern Colorado.
Do not restrict the search to professor types! Think tank members should come from industry, government, academia, non-profit. They might come from other parts of the US or from abroad. Anywhere and everywhere. Find the best people, period. Pay them well.
And listen to their suggestions.
In addition to thoughtful discussion we may just attract more people, good students included, to Pueblo once these superstars figure out how nice the weather is here and how little housing costs.
I forgot to put the whole ‘letter’ in, instead just including your think tank idea. Here is a first draft of the whole letter:
A few weeks ago I heard a story on Colorado Public Radio that Pueblo is to be the location of the largest solar power site on the Front Range.
I searched on-line this morning and found a couple of very interesting articles. This link is to the actual solar power project
http://www.chieftain.com/news/pueblo/2346770-120/solar-energy-pueblo-project
This second article is to a blog post written by a bright mind in the Pueblo area about the economic future of their community. Please take note of his idea for a high level think tank. While I will include the link to the whole article here http://www.justinholman.com/2014/01/24/pueblo-and-csu/ , excerpted below just his thoughts on the think tank.
Create a Pueblo think tank that conducts applied research on key issues we’re facing in Southern Colorado.
Maybe call it the Pueblo Prosperity Institute. Don’t spend a penny on a new facility but dangle a bunch of money out there to recruit the very best minds in Urban Planning, Water Resources, Economic Development, etc for fixed term (maybe 1 year with an option for a 2nd year?) appointment during which they must think, talk, write (but all publications must be freely available to the public – no peer review obscurity or indecipherable ivory tower mumbo-jumbo) and research one or more key issues facing Southern Colorado.
Do not restrict the search to professor types! Think tank members should come from industry, government, academia, non-profit. They might come from other parts of the US or from abroad. Anywhere and everywhere. Find the best people, period. Pay them well. And
listen to their suggestions.
In addition to thoughtful discussion we may just attract more people, good students included, to Pueblo once these superstars figure out how nice the weather is here and how little housing costs.
This seems to be an especially intriguing idea now, right after the GJ Economic Partnership (GJEP) had as their annual meeting speaker, John Frank of CH2MHill, a nationally recognized site selection expert who spoke at length about the need for a ‘unified effort’ to bring in the beast jobs and prosperity to our community and region.
By the way, did you notice the article in the news on September 16th that the Montrose and Rifle airports are in the running to host the new Colorado wildfire air force, that local state senator Steve King championed funding for? Where is Grand Junction and the GJ airport in consideration for that source of high paying jobs?
Doug Van Etten
Cherry Creek Properties Real Estate
970-433-4312 DouglasVanEtten@gmail.com
http://www.ComeHomeGrandJunction.com to search on-line for your next home
Thanks for the note, Doug! Great to hear that my article resonated with you. I’d be interested to hear about any feedback you might get from the Grand Junction community. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to be of service. Best wishes, Justin