Members of the Visiting Committee
I. The Case for a Management and Restoration Plan
II. Management and Budget Issues
III. Agenda for a Management and Restoration Plan
IV. Interim Improvements
I. The Case for a Management and Restoration Plan
The document that currently serves as Wellesley's "Master Plan" enunciates the important principle of maintaining the green valleys--the unbuilt meadows between the hilltop-sited buildings--and the historic views that have been primary components of the campus' image almost since the College's inception. It also contains a list of important recommendations, most of which unfortunately remain undone.
The problem with the current plan is this: 1) being essentially a list of individual ad hoc remedies, it does not project a comprehensive vision of the renewed campus and therefore does not command a sense of urgency for action or serve as a blueprint for the future as changing needs arise; 2) being a "master plan" that focuses only on capital needs, rather than a "management and restoration plan" that provides an integrated approach to renewal and maintenance, it does not offer a complete prescription for arresting the campus' decline and ensuring that restored areas stay in top condition.
A management and restoration plan will look at the campus comprehensively, as a single entity composed of various integrated systems, rather than piecemeal, as a series of problems to be solved. It will, for instance, address campus parking issues not merely on an individual problem-solving basis, but within the context of a user study and circulation analysis. It will also establish what human and other resources are necessary to maintain in top condition any landscape improvement that the College undertakes.
Some extra-collegiate programs and events use the College grounds, particularly in the summer, producing revenue for the College. Currently the administration has no way of measuring landscape repair cost either in terms of dollars or recovery time. By projecting a vision that embodies several clear principles, a management and restoration plan will help the President and Trustees to establish policy regarding the proper match of facilities with certain kinds of programs and events.
A management and restoration plan will also provide a framework for better site planning in the future because every new building and additional campus use can be considered contextually, that is, as existing within a spatial envelope and set of visual relationships that are as important as the building itself.
In short, the plan will be a powerful management and decision making tool in both a land use, maintenance and budgetary sense, because it will:
€ guide placement of buildings or additional uses of the landscape;
€ address parking needs, if and when required, in a systematic way;
€ address important existing and prospective circulation and access needs;
€ create priorities for landscape and hardscape improvements; and
€ define necessary life cycle maintenance requirements
We do not suggest that the College abandon implementation of some of the excellent recommendations set forth in its current master plan. On the other hand, we are suggesting that the President and Board of Trustees accept with pride the responsibility for enlisting the College's students, faculty, administrators, alumnae and other stakeholders in a broad-based campaign of campus stewardship that will arrest the deterioration of Wellesley's historic landscape and put in place a management system that will guarantee that the excellence of a Wellesley education will be reflected in the beauty of Wellesley's campus. Repairing certain obviously degraded parts of the campus even as it is being studied and analyzed in a comprehensive and systemic fashion will send a signal of commitment from the President and Trustees to the process of campus restoration (see Section IV of this report).
A management and restoration plan can also become the "case statement" for fundraising purposes. We feel that a compelling vision in words and schematic drawings of a renewed campus can be used as a handbook of donor opportunities and could generate philanthropic support that is non-competitive with current giving.
If implemented over a number of years, the management and restoration plan will result in an impressive legacy of this President and her board. Our campus, as conceived by Henry Durant, is not simply a collection of buildings and grounds. Rather, it is an integrated landscape with comprehensive systems of circulation, natural and ornamental vegetation, architecture and infrastructure that are, in fact, themselves part of a Wellesley education. If Wellesley is to reverse the current decline of its landscape, it will have to consider its campus not as residual "open space," the grounds around and between buildings, but as something that is integral with them. This must necessarily be reflected in its campus maintenance budget and a reorganization of its current campus management system.
II. Management and Budget Issues
Because of the imminent retirement of the Assistant Director of Physical Plant, Wellesley has an opportunity to take a fresh look not only at the job description for this position, but at the place it occupies within the college's administrative structure. We believe that there is an urgent need for two positions: 1) an Assistant Vice President/Director of Campus (Grounds) Planning and Operations who can
€ serve as the guardian of the integrity of the campus;
€ communicate effectively with the President, Trustees alumnae and townspeople regarding planning policy and maintenance standards;
€ lead a team of consultants in the preparation of the proposed management and restoration plan;
€ implement and oversee a zone-based landscape management system;
€ develop and oversee a long-range (five to ten-year) capital budget;
€ develop a plan for a Campus Volunteer Corps;
and 2) a horticulturally trained Assistant Director of Campus (Grounds) Planning and Maintenance who can
€ work with landscape contractors in implementing a series of capital projects that will result in the comprehensive renewal of Wellesley's campus over time;
€ work with the Assistant Vice President for Grounds Planning and Operations in developing a zone-based campus management system that relates jobs to landscape maintenance skills rather than union policy and rules;
€ use the principles of "total quality," or team-based, management to motivate a horticulturally trained workforce, thereby producing measurable, visible results;
€ prepare an annual campus maintenance budget;
€ oversee implementation of a plan for Campus Volunteer Corps and coordinate its tasks with those of regular workforce.
If the College cannot go forward with this preferred administrative structure, it should nevertheless rename the Department of Physical Plant the Department of Buildings and Grounds, revise Mr. Rida's title to "Assistant Vice President/Director of Buildings and Grounds," and charge him with accountability for an integrated management system that gives equal weight to grounds and buildings. In this case, although it will be difficult to find an individual that has both the leadership and communications skills assigned to the job description of Assistant Vice President/Director of Campus(Grounds) Planning and Operations and the managerial skills necessary to perform effectively as Assistant Director of Campus (Grounds)( Planning and Maintenance, the College should try to combine as many aspects of the two jobs as can be found in a single individual. The candidate should have a strong background in landscape design as well as good advocacy and interpersonal skills. In this fall-back situation the President and Trustees may want to hire or assign an additional person as staff to serve as an outside spokesperson and fundraising assistant for the proposed management and restoration plan.
If the College is to tap into the pool of retired people and others who enjoy performing horticultural work on a volunteer basis, there should be a volunteer coordinator to plan, supervise and work alongside of this group. The Wellesley campus also holds opportunities of a practical educational nature for the students, and these could prove of benefit to the College. The College's land holdings are such that the establishment of a nursery is a possibility. Students could propagate plants in the greenhouse and work in the nursery. A concession arrangement with a commercial nurseryman could make this a no-cost, or possibly even a revenue producing, operation. Similarly, the golf course operation may be a source of increased net revenues to support the campus.
Wellesley's current budget is woefully inadequate for maintaining a campus nucleus of 320 acres--one worker for twenty-three acres--with additional areas amounting to the same outside the nucleus. The existence of the golf course and its need for heavy seasonal maintenance magnifies the effort required of the modest workforce on other campus grounds. If the workforce were allowed to grow, individual workers could be assigned responsibility for sections of the campus. If such were the case, the appearance of the campus as a whole would improve significantly. At present, with only nine groundskeepers for the campus, this is an impossibility. The contrast between the landscape of the arboretum and botanical garden and the rest of the campus is striking. To regain its former beauty the campus as a whole should enjoy the same kind of maintenance practices and high horticultural standards as these special precincts.
Endowment revenues at present are being used as budgetary relief, offsetting the commitment of non-restricted funds, which otherwise would be directed to campus maintenance. The College would have a far stronger case for raising the special area endowments that might be listed on a menu of donor opportunities in any proposed campaign of campus stewardship if it can show a base-line commitment of annually budgeted funds.
III. Agenda for a Management and Restoration Plan
Critical elements of a proposed comprehensive Management and Restoration Plan for Wellesley College are the following:
Historic intent.
A compelling vision for saving Wellesley's campus will be grounded in its landscape history. Wellesley is a superb example of the picturesque style of landscape design and one that is beautifully complemented by the collegiate gothic architecture of its older buildings. A good plan will therefore start with an examination of archival material at the Olmsted Historic Site in Brookline and the documents relating to the campus at the Massachusetts Historical Society. It will document change over time and describe present conditions.
Circulation.
Wellesley's management and restoration plan will show traffic flows, both vehicular and pedestrian, throughout the campus at different times of day and at different seasons of the year. Off-path circulation will be documented as well and will become part of a ground plane conditions survey.
Use.
This circulation survey will necessarily be related to a user survey that will show the ways in which the campus lawns, meadows and woods, as well as its paths and roads, are used and how certain buildings and the classes and events scheduled within them act as magnets for traffic and landscape use.
Drainage, Paving and Parking.
A comprehensive plan must deal with issues of infrastructure. Do the above-ground and underdrainage systems for removing storm water work effectively? What is the condition of pathway and roadway paving? How and where should parking needs be met? Should the college build a garage for student and faculty parking? Where should a campus garage be sited if deemed necessary?
Vegetation.
Both a tree inventory and a ground plane vegetation survey should be undertaken as part of the plan. Students could be productively employed in gathering and logging information from these two companion surveys. The tree inventory will yield valuable information regarding the time-table for replacement of "post-mature" trees and will serve as the basis for siting class trees (see recommendation 7.4 in the present master plan).
Vistas and Views.
In a good plan every building is considered not merely as a functional and architectural object, but as part of a "viewshed." The Wellesley Campus plan will analyze not only physical use, but visual use of the landscape as well. (The current plan does this in a preliminary way.)
Lighting.
Security considerations and aesthetics go hand in hand. A beautiful landscape must also feel safe. In conjunction with the circulation study, the plan will examine campus lighting and project the cost of re-engineering the optics in Wellesley's historic fixtures.
Signage.
A uniform graphic style in a homogeneous environment like a campus is a definite signal that management is on the job. A coherent campus signage system and policy will be an important part of the plan.
Maintenance strategy.
A management and restoration plan will outline the maintenance tasks necessary to keep the campus in excellent condition. These tasks will be budgeted within the context of the plan. This part of the planning process will examine current management practices and make recommendations on a zone-by-zone basis for future campus care. A workforce profile will be established and job descriptions with performance measurement standards written as part of the plan.
CAD mapping.
The plan will contain several layers of computerized information showing campus trees and other vegetation, drainage and circulation systems, etc. Investment now in a set of documents that graphically depicts the different layers of Wellesley's physical plan will provide campus managers and the administration with an important tool for better day-to-day campus care and planning of future improvements. Changes through time can be easily documented in this electronic data base.
Plans, perspectives, diagrams and photographs.
The plan should make the case in clear visual terms of what things are wrong now and how they can be corrected within the context of a comprehensive reordering of the Wellesley landscape. Photographs of current conditions coupled with perspective drawings of planned improvements can serve as a useful tool in making the case for the campus as a priority.
IV. Interim Improvements
How can Wellesley begin to improve its campus even as it undertakes the work necessary to achieving a long-term vision? In speaking with the students, the committee gained the sense that security was a primary concern. We also observed that most of the residential grounds had become quite dilapidated and felt that the students and their guests deserved more welcoming surroundings. We were also struck by the lack of a coherent signage system and the appearance on campus of some quite ugly and inappropriate street signs (for example, the ONE WAY sign at the Hazard Quadrangle where a nicely lettered sign would have performed the same function).
Based on our conversations and campus tour with the landscape architect, Carol Johnson, as well as upon our own observations and discussion, the committee proposes for consideration the following three projects, which could be done at the same time that the College began its preliminary work on a management and restoration plan:
Hazard Quadrangle
Although Tower Court, with its lovely plan by Fletcher Steele, is in bad shape and the same can be said of other residential groupings, the Hazard Quadrangle, with its broken paving, crumbling brick walks and lack of space-defining shrubs, was to our eyes the most forlorn. We therefore urge the implementation of Recommendation 1.5 A of Carol Johnson's plan.
Signage
Although a signage system should be developed as an element of the management and restoration plan in conjunction with an analysis of campus circulation, there is a good reason to go ahead now with a new system of campus signs. Well-designed, carefully placed signs in a uniform style are a relatively inexpensive form of public relations, saying to campus visitors: "We care. This is a well-run institution." We concur with Carol Johnson's Recommendation 2.4 and support her suggestion that a new good map become part of the environmental graphic designer's assignment. The further suggestion that certain inelegant names be changed to ones that have a more pleasing ring is also a good one. To implement this suggestion, the College should engage the services of a good environmental graphic designer (the Society of Environmental Graphic Designers is located in Cambridge, Mass.) to survey the signage needs of the campus and develop a typography, color and materials code that will read as distinctively "Wellesley."
Security Lighting
One of the students who met with us declared that the harsh glare of the high pressure sodium pathway lighting created certain blind spots along her path at night. The College should begin conversion of its historic fixtures to a metal halide source, which creates an even pool of white light, illuminates paths and the surrounding landscape better and makes people feel safer at night than the high pressure sodium source with its disagreeable yellow light and extremely poor color rendition (for instance, green vegetation appears muddy brown). Several other campuses have metal halide lighting, and Central Park has felt much safer since its path lights were converted to this source. Although the lighting system of the Wellesley campus should be comprehensively surveyed in conjunction with the proposed circulation study, a trial portion of the campus could be re-lamped now. We think that a limited experiment, with feed-back from the students, will prove the desirability of going further.