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2 May 2016
Dear Councilmember Rice:
Thank you for your previous support of higher education in Montgomery County. Coming up next week is a vote on whether to fund Montgomery College's planned Math and Science Center on the Takoma Park campus. I urge you to vote in favor of this funding request. As a Maryland resident since 2003, a Montgomery College faculty member since 2011, and a Takoma Park homeowner since 2012, I feel that the county needs to make this investment in facilities in order to remain competitive in a higher education market suffering from stagnant or declining enrollment. I also feel that the City of Takoma Park, in its recent letter to Maryland Higher Education Commission opposing the development, leaves an impression of unanimity on an issue that generates controversy even within the Takoma Park community. I hope in this letter to make you aware of the alternative viewpoint in favor of funding the new building.
Last year I had the privilege of teaching two semesters and one summer course on the Rockville campus of Montgomery College, whose new Science Center houses a nationally-renowned engineering department and state-of-the-art laboratory space for training future biologists, astrophysicists, and geoscientists. The benefits of these modern facilities were not lost on the student population, many of whom endured long commutes from inside the Beltway in order to partake in this rich learning environment. If a comparable learning experience could be obtained just across the DC line in Takoma Park, the county could attract even more students, helping increase the college revenue with much less additional fossil fuel emissions than transportation of commuter students headed out to Rockville or Germantown would entail.
While I have friends in the Takoma Park historic district and can relate to their concerns about multistory buildings detracting from the photogenic skyline, my meetings with the architects involved on the new building suggest that they appreciate these aesthetic concerns and will design elevations more tastefully than the City�s petition implies. The insistence on a zero-growth option by some historic district residents ignores the fact that this funding request has been delayed three times already during a period of rising demand for higher education, allowing competitor institutions with more modern facilities to gain market share at our expense. Now that enrollment at community colleges nationwide has plateaued or started to decline, the historic district residents might exert pressure on the County to shut down the Takoma Park campus, citing the competitive disadvantage that their own past defunding votes all but assured. I ask you to resist renewed calls for divestment in this valuable institution, and instead vote in favor of the College's request for funding of the Math Science Center.
Thank you for considering this request.