The President’s Recommendation to the Board of Trustees
on Relocating the Tyler School of Art from the
University’s Elkins Park Campus
to the University’s Flagship Main Campus in Philadelphia

During the past six decades, the Tyler School of Art of Temple University has forged a strong identity and a national reputation; in 1997, Tyler was nationally ranked in the top ten percent of art schools. With that record, a normal response on proposals to change anything would be along the lines of: "If it’s not broken, don’t fix it." Such a response may be appropriate for the near-term, but our duty is to preserve and insure Tyler’s excellence as part of a vibrant Temple University well into the next century.

What triggers today’s timing are four sets of facts:

The Issue

With the University committed to maintaining an excellent Tyler well into the 21st century, substantial capital investments are required over the next decade, regardless of Tyler’s location.

The issue is, therefore, not whether to invest, but where to invest the capital resources that will insure Tyler’s long-term excellence while simultaneously furthering University-wide interests.

The current Elkins Park campus in Montgomery County began as a gift to the University in 1934 of a "country home" and other buildings and land. In those days, campus life at Temple was sparse compared with traditional college campuses. There was minimal synergism among academic programs, the residential, social, cultural and recreational life, and athletics. Each campus, and each program within a campus, was quite autonomous. Temple was a commuter school.

For decades, the Tyler property in Elkins Park served Art very well. By 1973, when the last major construction was completed on a bucolic campus, there were 9 buildings scattered around a green, 12-acre campus. The Elkins Park campus, devoted exclusively to Art, has provided a focused, intense, contemplative and relaxed atmosphere for studio art, didactic education and art exhibitions for generations of Tyler students and faculty. Additionally, Tyler became a major cultural asset for the Cheltenham Township community.

During the last two decades, the character of the surrounding areas changed as urban development replaced suburban and rural countryside.

The higher education marketplace has become a volatile and competitive "business," regionally and nationally. An even higher velocity of change in the future is anticipated. Some changes are driven by the information-technology revolution, others by cost-conscious consumers who can choose from a variety of high quality programs and universities. No academic discipline or site is immune to these pressures. None exists in isolation. Tyler is being affected by these changes.

Noting those realities and mindful of the capital investments needed over the next decade to upgrade the Elkins Park campus and to preserve Tyler’s excellence, University Provost James W. England in March 1997 recommended that Tyler be relocated to the University’s flagship Main Campus.

Tyler would join the University’s other excellent performing and visual arts programs already located and flourishing together on Main. These are the Esther Boyer College of Music, the Department of Theater, and the Department of Dance. Dynamic synergism would flow from these four excellent programs physically housed in a two-block area on Main. Tyler’s move would be a cultural boon, benefiting 25,000 members of the University community who work and live on Main Campus and the larger community. The move would also eliminate redundant administrative costs from a second "full service" campus that serves only one program while giving further justification for new capital investments and the annual operating losses for Tyler.

Provost England’s proposal for change triggered passionate discussion in the University community. "We won’t go!" "Let us be!" Understandably, these were among the first reactions in the Tyler community.

Meanwhile, on June 26,1997, the University’s Board of Trustees, after 16 months of University-wide discussion on a much larger series of issues, adopted a comprehensive strategic plan for the University as a whole. (At that meeting, the Board also tabled any action on Tyler until additional studies were completed.)

The Board approved six strategic initiatives to insure the University’s vitality and excellence into the early part of the 21^st century. The six initiatives are spelled out in the document, "A Special Report by the President on Strategic Initiatives."

Strategic Initiatives underscores the regional, national and international reach, character, sites and standards of excellence of Temple programs. In Initiative #2, the Board recommends a series of specific actions to invigorate and help transform Temple’s flagship Main Campus into a "residential community of scholars - - ‘Temple Town.’" It is this part of Strategic Initiatives that bears directly on Tyler’s future location.

In January 1998, the Board of Trustees Strategic Planning Committee, at my request, established a Task Force to examine in depth the desirability and feasibility of moving Tyler to the Main Campus. Mindful that continued uncertainty over Tyler’s future would be harmful, a maximum time of six months was allotted before final action by the Board.

Following four months of intense study and deliberation, including visits to other leading art schools and consultations with recognized experts in the field, the Board’s Task Force, on May 11, 1998, rendered its report, recommending consolidation of all Tyler programs on Main.

The Task Force concluded:

A concurring report by Tyler Dean Toner and faculty representatives on the Task Force concluded:

I adopt the recommendation of the Tyler Task Force on the Tyler School of Art. It is forwarded to the Board for action, with the following explanation:

1. The University’s goal should be to insure Tyler as an outstanding and nationally acclaimed art school well into the next century, and to do so in a manner best for art students, faculty and alumni, and in a manner best for the Temple University community as a whole.
   
2. The future of Tyler as an integral part of a vibrant Temple University can best be assured by relocating Tyler to Main for the reasons originally offered by Provost England, refined by the Board’s Task Force, and as further described in this document.
   
3. Timing is critical. There are obvious morale considerations in further uncertainties about Tyler. Timing is also critical to avoid duplication in capital investments. The very substantial capital costs to sustain Tyler at the remote Elkins Park campus for another 5-10 years would duplicate the capital costs of creating a new Tyler campus on Main, or elsewhere.
   
4. The move to Main would benefit future Tyler students and faculty. They would have immediate access to the breadth of disciplines, courses, programs and services offered on the Main Campus. Tyler students and faculty would also have full access to the information technology, inter-disciplinary studies and the synergism of diversity on Main.
   
5. Tyler’s move to Main would benefit all performing and visual arts at Temple.
   
6. Tyler’s move to Main would benefit the University’s 25,000 students, faculty, staff and alumni already on Main. They would have immediate access to Tyler Art and derive meaningful enrichment.
   
7. The larger community would benefit. And so would the City of Philadelphia.

Accordingly, I recommend moving Tyler to the Main Campus by the 2000-2001 academic year, taking into account the Task Force’s opinions, and with the following provisos:

• The move should be to a "mini-campus" within Main that insures Tyler’s distinct identity.
  
• The mini-campus should include a well-defined "green campus" within Main.
  
• The best site for the mini-campus is an existing, vacant "island of land" within Main that is not presently owned by the University. That site meets both Task Force and institutional criteria. It is the full block bordered by 11^th Street, Berks Street, Warnock Street, and Montgomery Avenue.
  
• State-of-the-art facilities could include a dramatic new building towards the north end of the "green" block, forming the northern border of Tyler’s mini-campus. The newly-acquired "Bell Building" at 12^th Street and Montgomery Avenue could form the west end of an L-shaped mini-campus. (The "Bell Building" will be scheduled for major renovations during this same time period.)
  
• The east part of the Main Campus would be dramatically enhanced by the confluence of Tyler’s mini-campus site and the technologically advanced Tuttleman Learning Center, just a block away, where all undergraduate students will take some classes. (Tuttleman opens in late Spring 1999 at 13^th Street and Montgomery Avenue.) Simultaneously, 13^th Street between Cecil B. Moore Avenue and Norris Street could become a pedestrian mall, a necessary "campus" feature for safety and social synergism on beautiful Main.

Tyler on Main would join other new physical icons that are helping to revitalize the Main Campus:

• The Apollo of Temple, with its six parts;
• The Tuttleman Learning Center;
• The I.B.C. Student Recreation Center;
• A new Student Fieldhouse (opening in Winter 1999);
• New student residences (the first opening in 1999-2000);
• Renovated science buildings and laboratories (in 2000-2002);
• Expansion of Paley Library;
• Major and ongoing investments in advanced educational technologies;
• Restaurants and other retail outlets (in 1999-2000);
• A hotel and conference center; and
• Other physical changes, and major academic initiatives like the new School of Tourism and Hospitality Management.

Together, the cosmopolitan and diverse Temple community is undergoing a transformation as a residential community of scholars, and Tyler’s presence will enhance and further this Initiative.

When any major program with more than 1,000 people is contemplating whether to stay in or move from, or into the City, there is a powerful symbolism in its decision. Tyler’s move from Elkins Park to Philadelphia would be a coup for the City, perhaps unprecedented in recent memory.

Beyond symbolism, there are significant tangible benefits to the City of Philadelphia if Tyler moves from its suburban location to Main. They include:

• importing 800 students and 350 jobs to Philadelphia;
  
• creating on-campus housing for half those students and off-campus demand for housing for many others;
• infusing $8.6 million in new annual spending in Philadelphia, $6.2 million in new earnings in Philadelphia, and more than $250,000 in additional annual wage tax revenues for Philadelphia;
  
• spending tens of millions of dollars in on-campus construction, generating as many as 1,500 "job years" in Philadelphia.

To accomplish this objective, Temple University needs unconditional, strong and prompt support from the City of Philadelphia.

Temple is not requesting a financial appropriation or financial incentives from the City.

Instead, the University has a relative modest request, fully in the public interest.

Temple needs the City’s full and prompt cooperation to accomplish the following:

The Board of Trustees will take action on June 25. Further delays would lead to uncertainty, anxiety and potentially negative consequences for Tyler and the University.

I can make this recommendation with confidence because we already have in hand a strong preliminary endorsement of this project by Mayor Rendell and City Council President Street, as the attached letter indicates.  We will work conscientiously and responsibly with all interested parties to help expedite this exciting project. But, I repeat, time is of the essence.

With the 2000-2001 academic year as the target date for relocating Tyler, there is ample time to determine and implement the University’s optimum future uses of its Elkins Park campus. Such uses will, of course, be consistent with the University’s mission and with Strategic Initiatives. We recognize that Tyler is a major cultural asset for Cheltenham Township. We will continue to consult with our Elkins Park neighbors, local and state officials, and the larger public in planning the future of that campus.

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