The University of California, Merced, today received approval from the UC Board of Regents for its proposal to double the physical capacity of the campus by 2020.
This formal approval authorizes the campus to move to the Request for Proposals (RFP) phase of its development plan, known as the 2020 Project. The project will add 919,000 assignable square feet of classroom, laboratory, housing and student life facilities. The goal of the project is to support enrollment growth from the current total of nearly 6,700 students to 10,000 students within about five years and to provide a strong base for academic and research achievements.
"This expansion is critical to our mission of research, education and public service and is essential to attaining “critical mass” as a small but highly focused research university," said UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland. "The 10,000-student level will provide financial self-sufficiency, operational efficiencies and a strong base for academic and research pursuits that will bring distinction to UC Merced and its talented faculty and staff in the great UC tradition."
The UC Merced Graduate Division looks forward to a number of positive changes that will come about as a result of the expansion. Graduate programs will grow in size and diversity as the campus expands, with a target graduate student population of 1,000.
Importantly, UC Merced expects to hire 140 new ladder-rank faculty members in targeted fields over the next five to seven years. This means more opportunities for learning and for research and interdisciplinary collaborations that address key problems in today’s world. The expansion is expected to create more Teaching Assistantships (TA) and Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) positions that will allow Graduate Division to maintain its excellent funding record — currently 97% of all doctoral students at UC Merced are fully funded — and on-campus graduate housing is also anticipated as part of the project.
“UC Merced has long prided itself on the excellence of our graduate programs,” said Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie Zatz. “The 2020 Project will propel us forward, allowing us to build upon our strengths and further expand and diversify the research opportunities and partnerships available to new and continuing students. UC Merced is actively striving to make itself distinctive in every possible way, adding to the outstanding quality of our faculty and graduate students."
Broadly, the 2020 Project proposal calls for a single private development team to design, build, operate and maintain a broad mix of academic, residential, student life and recreational facilities through a single long-term contract. The use of a single developer for all phases of the master-planned project is expected to create significant time savings and additional long-term value for the university compared to traditional development methods.
The “design-build-finance-operate-maintain” (DBFOM) model is an innovative form of public-private partnership (P3) increasingly used for infrastructure projects, such as bridges and utility projects, around the world. While the UC system has used other, less complex P3 models for other facilities, the 2020 Project would be the first DBFOM model used for an educational facility anywhere in the United States.
The 2020 Project was approved by the full Board of Regents on Thursday afternoon, in a vote that was initially scheduled for Friday.
“Once construction is completed, [the 2020 Project] will enable the campus to admit thousands more students in the coming years," said University of California President Janet Napolitano. "So this is a signature moment for future generations of Californians who aspire to learn in the classroom and the laboratory at the first new research university of the 21st Century.”
Find more information about today's vote here and see more details about the 2020 project here. You can also see a video about this new 2020 Project development below.
