Bishop’s facing difficult decisions on Divinity House
Bishop’s University held a town-hall style meeting on the future of Divinity House on Monday, looking for perspectives on what should be done with one of the campus’ oldest buildings. Divinity House has stood empty for the last three years after an architect’s report warned that the building is no longer structurally sound. For some members of the Bishop’s community, this week's meeting renewed concerns that the school would opt to demolish the building rather than try to save it.
“I was expecting to be told that they were planning to tear it down,” said Jenn Cianca, Department chair of Classical Studies and Liberal Arts, explaining that the gathering was the first news she had heard of the building in roughly two years. “The good news, from my perspective, is that is not an immediate decision, but it is definitely still on the table.”
Cianca took to Facebook with her concerns about the possibility of demolition following the meeting mostly, she said, to know what recent alumni thought. The associate professor said that she was troubled by an opinion shared at the gathering that only alumni from long ago have strong feelings about the building.
“I went to Bishop’s and graduated in 2001,” Cianca said. “I had a lot of really important moments that happened in there.”
Reaching out to both her own cohort and students she has since taught at the school, Cianca said that she has received a large number of messages in just a few days.
“(Divinity House) is part of the aesthetic and cultural fabric of the campus,” the professor said.
Asked about the situation, Bishop’s Principal Michael Goldbloom explained that Monday’s meeting was part of an ongoing process by a group whose job is to provide a report on options for the future of the building by mid-september.
“The task force was not charged with telling us definitively about a solution,” the Principal said, explaining that the group, made up of people who know the building and understand its history, is tasked with telling the board of directors whether there is a “realistic possibility of a solution,” and some of the ideas that go with that.
“They will take into account what they’ve heard,” Goldbloom said, adding that no one should be concerned that the building is going to be knocked down covertly in the middle of the night.
While recognizing the significance of the building’s history, however, the principal pointed out that keeping Divinity around is costing the University roughly $15,000 per year. If the school decides in September that it does have a plan worth looking at other than demolition, then that cost will shoot up to around $37,000 in order to reinforce the structure. The cost to restore the building was estimated in 2014 to be at least $4 million because of the degree of structural decay and building code violations that would need to be addressed, making it significantly less expensive to consider building something new.
Up until the end of the last school year, Bishop’s was receiving government funding to offset that $15,000 cost, but Goldbloom said that funding has now ended. That leaves already cash-strapped Bishop’s with the bill if the decision comes to try to save the building.
“it’s a harsh reality to know that it is going to cost money that we don’t have just to keep it standing, let alone in use,” said Cianca.
“I would like nothing better if the Bishop’s alumni, and particularly those who have an affinity to the building, were to come forward to say they want to raise money to save the building, but I’d have to say I’m not optimistic that that is going to happen,” Goldbloom said, explaining that his doubt about alumni saviours comes from the challenges the school has had in trying to renovate its residences.
“I made the argument that surely there are thousands of alumni who lived in those residences who understand how important they are to our university,” the Principal said. “It just does not seem to have found much resonance among our alumni. I think people are more inclined towards supporting programs and scholarships than they are toward bricks and mortar.”
Cianca reacted to that comparison with skepticism, stating that although the building has been a residence in the
past, it has known much more life as a place of learning.
“I feel like there’s so much more power in the academic buildings than there is in the residential buildings,” she said. “It speaks to the character of the institution. Residence is fun, but it’s also grubby and you move out after first year; your real emotional connections tend to happen in the classroom and in off campus housing.”
The professor said she’s not pretending that the readers of her Facebook post just have millions of dollars sitting around to pour into the building but added that she wants to establish the depth of the connection people have to the building that once housed the university’s school of divinity.
“There’s no reason that Divinity can’t be repurposed,” Cianca said. “It has had a lot of different lives already, but part of the beauty of maintaining or renovating a structure is that you carry all of those things with it. Everything leaves a mark.”
Both Cianca and Goldbloom acknowledged the fact that “saving” divinity actually amounts to preserving a façade, but the professor argued that keeping the old exterior while giving a new life to the interior would show Bishop’s to be a community that cares about and is connected to its history.
“A historic building reminds a community of its culture and of its values,” she said. “This is a repository of memory and to tear something like that down is a great loss to a community.”
Divinity House does not currently have any kind of official protected status that the school is aware of, although the principal said that investigating that is part of the work of the task force.
Although not optimistic in face of the financial and bureaucratic obstacles that stand in the way of saving the structure, Goldbloom made a point of stating how difficult having to make a decision like this is for the school.
“I go across the country meeting with our alumni and part of the presentation I have been doing in the last six months, if not longer, is that I always put up a picture of divinity house to tell people of this situation we are facing,” the principal said.
Neither Cianca nor Goldbloom chose to share any of the ideas that are being discussed at this point, but the associate professor mentioned that she felt there is potential for Divinity House to be used better than it has been.
“The more people the building can serve the better,” she said. “If people care about the building, then they should let us know.”