Demolition of school called part of ‘promise’

By Margo Rutledge Kissell | Monday, January 30, 2012, 11:21 AM

Dayton Public Schools plans to start demolishing the former Julienne High School on Homewood Avenue on March 5 despite a final push by some community members to try to save the historic building.

Six members met this week with school board President Ronald Lee to request a six-month delay of the demolition of the school and convent to find possible funding for renovation and determine the most constructive use.

Group member Gail Horvath, a 1957 Julienne graduate who taught there from 1966 to 1973, said they were given no reason to remain hopeful despite another meeting being scheduled for Monday between three coalition members, Lee and the district superintendent.

Horvath, editor of a 64-page softcover book called “Our Dear Old Julienne,” said they have suggested using the property for possible transitional housing for Dayton’s homeless, a job training facility, a community center or arts center.

“Our feeling is, given there are so many needs out there, there are so many uses these buildings could be adapted to,” she said.

Dayton Public spokeswoman Jill Moberley said asbestos removal is nearly complete on Julienne and the district plans to move ahead with demolition after recently celebrating the dedication of its 26th and final new school in its $627 million construction program.

In 2002, when the district passed a $245 million bond issue to build the new schools, “we made a promise to the community that at the conclusion of our construction project we would leave no eyesores or hazards in the neighborhoods,” Moberley said Friday.

“A vacant building can attract some undesirable elements to a neighborhood that can create health and safety issues,” he added.

The district never intended to renovate Julienne, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and served Dayton Christian High School and as a temporary home to Stivers School for the Arts.

Julienne has remained empty since 2007. The district held several community meetings to consider possible uses for the former school, which was offered for sale.

“We heard proposals from groups who were interested in renovating the building,” she said, “but nobody stepped forward to purchase the building so we had to move forward with our plans.”

Through the Ohio School Facilities Commission, the state is covering 61 percent of the cost of the district’s construction effort and will cover that much of the demolition costs, including $579,600 on the demolition, Moberely said.

Horvath said the school stood as an impressive “citadel on the hill” educating Dayton students from 1926 until 2007 and she doesn’t want to see it or its neoclassical architecture lost to a wrecking ball.

She believes saving the old Julienne complex would give Dayton something to be proud of.

“We would be joining other progressive cities across the nation that are realizing the wisdom in preserving and putting architecturally significant, structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing buildings to productive community use,” she said.

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Applications soar at area colleges

By Margo Rutledge Kissell | Friday, January 13, 2012, 02:04 PM

Driven by a weak job market, aggressive recruiting efforts and the trend of high school students applying to multiple colleges, some area universities are seeing a significant increase in the number of applications for next fall.

The University of Dayton set a new record with 12,582 applications for the incoming freshman class with several weeks to go before its March 1 deadline. That breaks last year’s record of 12,317 applications.

Cedarville University in Greene County also has seen an increase in student interest, receiving about 8 percent more applications than last year.

Meanwhile, Wright State University said it’s too early to tell how its numbers are trending because it accepts applications until the week before classes start.

At Miami University, nearly twice as many high school students have submitted “early decision” applications, indicating they are committed to attending the university and will confirm enrollment if accepted. Those rose 96 percent, from 466 in 2010 to 913 in late December, a spokeswoman said. Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Washington, said there’s been a national trend in the past decade of students applying to more colleges.

“It’s easier to apply to multiple places because of technology,” he said. Thanks to a Common Application program in which more schools are participating, “with the click of a mouse, a student can submit to 10, 12, 20 schools.”

Kathy McEuen Harmon, UD’s assistant vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, said the university has participated since 2008 in the online Common Application program that now includes 456 schools, “so an increase in applications most likely is not related to this participation.”

Work continues at UD on a $25 million student housing project at Brown and Caldwell streets that officials say must be completed by move-in day in August. The apartments for 427 upperclassmen and some international students will expand student housing on the campus.

The current UD freshman and sophomore classes are very large and have “created an even higher demand for our housing than we already have. We also have a record number of international students. Those two things coupled together have made that housing quite a necessity,” said Beth Keyes, UD’s vice president for facilities management.

University officials say they do not plan to overfill the fall 2012 class and will become more selective due to the large number of applications. The incoming class size likely will be kept under 2,000 students, Harmon said.

“The selectivity is not to become an elite school,” she said. “It’s to maintain the value we think we offer our students.”

Harmon said the university — which has 11,000 students, including about 7,500 undergraduates — has strived to stay at a certain size “where we think the sense of community will thrive. If we get too large we’ll lose something, and that’s never been our goal.”

Harmon says one factor in the increase in applications is UD’s strategy of broadening its outreach outside Ohio. Of UD’s 12,582 applications received so far, 6,925 (55 percent) have come from outside the state, while 5,657 have come from Ohio.

She noted that the number of Ohio applicants have increased as well, with 635 more than last year at this time.

Janice Supplee, Cedarville University’s vice president for enrollment management and marketing, said their application numbers are running slightly ahead of the pace to reach a goal of 3,333 freshman applications this year.

“We’ve been very proactive about our recruitment effort, so obviously we hope those efforts are continuing to pay off,” she said.

Because of the national trend of students applying to multiple schools at once, she said Cedarville closely monitors those numbers.

“I just don’t think you can put a huge amount of trust in the application number,” she said. “We have to continue to recruit all the way through the cycle.”

She also has heard about some students putting down multiple deposits, a trend that Nassirian said is related to students trying to hedge their bets during a weak economy.

The economy “certainly contributes to the uncertainty because family finances are becoming less certain and it’s probably made people a little more price-sensitive,” Nassirian said.

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, he said some students might be willing to put down multiple deposits “thinking it’s better to risk a few hundred bucks and cover their bases in case one school proves a lot more workable for them financially.”

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