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Wesleyan University plans construction of new dormitories, a combination dining hall--student union, an auditorium, a music building and expanded laboratory and athletic facilities, Executive Vice President John W. Macy Jr. said Saturday.
Macy also indicated that the university is still interested in establishing a coordinate college for women.
Speaking to a group of community leaders at Wesleyan's Middletown Day luncheon, Macy revealed that last spring, Wesleyan "had to turn away more than 1,000 students capable of studying at the University, and if we do not expand our present facilities, will deprive several
thousand students of a Wesleyan education during the next decade"
More Spending
Macy said that failing to admit more than 1,000 qualified students last spring "would not be so tragic if our sister colleges had the facilities to educate them. But unfortunately, the dilemma facing us is shared by virtually every college in the nation, and the expected increase in the
number of young people desiring college educations in the immediate future is going to force colleges through-out the country to turn away countless thousands of qualified students.
He said that Wesleyan's plan to increase its enrollment 20 percent to 1,000 students will mean "a further contribution to Middletown in the form of a larger and hopefully more distinguished educational institution in its midst." It will also mean "an economic impact on the city which will increase the more than $3 million currently expended in Middletown each year by Wesleyan, its students and faculty."
"On the other side," Macy admitted, "it will mean additional property removed from the tax lists, for private educational institutions have, since the earliest days of the Republic, appropriately enjoyed tax exemption wherever they have been located."
He said, however, that Wesleyan has been studying for several months the total issue of the university's financial relationship with the city. "I can assure you," he said, "that we are interested in the future of Middletown as well as the future of the college as the two must be constructively inter-related."
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The Center for Advanced Studies, still standing on Pearl Street behind Russell House, was designed and built in 1960 (its name was later changed to Center for the Humanities). Also in 1960, Wesleyan awarded a $1.2M contract to build a two-story publications building at the intersection of High and Beach Streets. Dormitories on Foss Hill, and a dining hall were built shortly after. Both were dedicated during Commencement Weekend in June of 1963; the dining hall was named after James L. McConaughy, a former college president and state governor. New science buildings between Lawn and Church were built in the mid-60s, and a
new dormitory built between Lawn and Huber during the same period.
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