Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
The future of one of the oldest buildings on Montana State University-Northern’s campus is up in the air, with potentially millions of dollars worth of work needed on Donaldson Hall and no funds available to do the work. “Overall, it’s kind of a derelict building,” said Northern Interim Chancellor Rolf Groseth. “It’s an old residence hall that we stopped using as a residence hall a long time ago.” Groseth said that while he wants to continue to use some rooms in Donaldson, the expense to repair problems in the building, as well as a desire to group offices with similar functions together, has led to a decision to move offices out of the building. The building, originally opened in 1936 as a women’s dormitory, now houses several offices and is used to host events in Donaldson Commons on the west end of the building. The organizations with offices in the building including the MSU-Northern Foundation and the Northern Alumni Association say they have been told their offices will be moved to other buildings by the start of the fall semester. Judy Bricker, director of the Alumni Association, said the association would rather not leave the building, and if they are moved, would like to come back. The chances of that do not look good, she added. “As of right now this looks permanent,” Bricker said. She also said the association is worried that once the move is made, maintenance of the building may take a back seat. “We’re just concerned that, once it is closed, that it will be very difficult to bring it back,” Bricker said. Bill Gupton, executive director of the Foundation, said much the same. “Whether we stay or not we want to at least see this building maintained,” he said. “I would say the Foundation and the Alumni would like very much to get back into Donaldson. It suits our needs; it’s very accessible; it is good for the people we serve.” Groseth said the university doesn’t have the money to do that. As a residence hall, Donaldson can only be maintained or repaired through the university’s auxiliary fund, which is funded through student fees and payments such as rental of rooms in the residence hall. An estimate of the cost to renovate Donaldson to reopen it as a residence hall, made at the request of former Chancellor Alex Capdeville, was $5 million to $8 million dollars, Groseth said. “We just aren’t in a position to spend that kind of money, anywhere near that kind of money,” he said. Bricker and Gupton said that, once they know precisely what the university’s intent is for the use of the building, they want to start a capital campaign to find funds to make existing repairs and keep the historic building in operation. A slice of Northern’s history Donaldson, the third building used on Northern’s campus, was the first completely new building constructed on the campus, opening as a women’s dormitory in 1936, the history section of Northern’s Web site said. The institution was originally authorized in 1913 to be operated in the buildings of Fort Assinniboine south of Havre, which was decommissioned by the U.S. Army in 1911. However, the new college was not funded, and the fort was used in 1915 to house the Northern Agricultural Research Center instead. In 1927, the Montana Legislature amended the act to allow classes to be taught in Havre, and classes started in the fall of 1929, taught in Havre High School on 3rd Avenue and 7th Street. The college remodeled a pump house located on campus land located near the present Student Union Building and known as East Hall and started using it in 1932. That building was demolished in 1979. The second building used on campus, Pershing Hall, was built through the cooperation of the college and the local Chamber of Commerce. Transporting materials from Fort Assinniboine and using local scrip from the Chamber to pay workers and also using donated services, construction started in 1933 and the building opened in 1934. Donaldson Hall was built using a loan through the federal Public Works Administration. Named in honor of a deceased Northern English instructor in 1949, it opened in 1936 and provided housing for 116 women attending the college. It’s living room Donaldson Commons provided a space for dances and social functions, and it served as a symbol of the fledgling college, with pictures of the dorm used in the masthead of the college newspaper for many years. With the construction of MacKenzie Hall, a new women’s dormitory, in 1971, Donaldson was retired as a residence hall that year. The lower floors were rented to the Havre school district at that time, and since then Donaldson has seen limited use as a dormitory or temporary housing space in the 1980s and 1990s. On-campus housing is now provided in MacKenzie Hall and Morgan Hall, opened in 1957, and in the family student housing on the hill on the southeast edge of the campus. The Alumni Association, in an effort spearheaded by its chair at the time, Leonard Severson, completed a major remodeling of some of the lower floors in the 1980s and have worked on many other projects to maintain the building, Bricker said. She added that the building has significant meaning to members of the Alumni Association 75 percent say it figures prominently in their memories of the university and they have made significant donations of time and money to maintaining it over the years. “The alumni, in the past, have wanted to maintain it and have given their investment,” Bricker said. “They are not willing to just let it go.” Decades of accumulated problems But keeping the building in operation will take some major work, including replacing all of the electrical and plumbing systems. Groseth said there was a problem with a water line to the building this week that had to be repaired, and there are problems with the heating system. “We have a boiler that’s kind of on the brink, and I don’t want to be dealing with that in the middle of February,” he said. Moving the offices Donaldson now houses nine offices, including for the Alumni, Foundation and the Educational Opportunity Center meets two goals of the university, Groseth added. One is to get offices out of a building that has limited use because of the need for repairs, the other is to group offices doing similar work in the same area. Groseth said the university is moving several offices with that intent. The Educational Opportunity Center will be in Cowan Hall near other student support services, and while the Foundation and Alumni offices wouldn’t have to be in Cowan Hall, they are being moved there because space is available, he said. Groseth said he wants to find ways to continue to use some rooms in the building, especially the elegant Donaldson Commons, which has hosted campus and community events, meetings of the board of regents and with Montana governors and even housed a meeting for former President Bill Clinton when he was in Havre in April. “It certainly is the nicest room on our campus and, I think, one of the nicest rooms in the university system,” Groseth said. The architectural estimate requested by former MSU-N chancellor Alex Capdeville earlier this decade, with the intent to renovate Donaldson to make it the premiere dormitory on the campus, showed costs as high as $8 million. Groseth said that while the university could not afford that, he is having the facilities staff work on finding ways to keep some rooms, particularly the commons, open. Barry Zanto who was one of the many members of the alumni association that worked on the lower levels of Donaldson in the 1980s including stripping and refinishing painted hardwood trim and accessories, sanding and refinishing the hardwood floors, and repairing and replacing drapes and furnishings said that he believes the building could be saved. “I think you could repair the building for a lot less (than the architect’s estimate,)” Zanto said. “If you were going to make dorms out of it, it would take a lot more money.” Zanto said that with the history and work and money already invested in the building, it should be saved and kept open. “I’d hate to see the whole building torn down,” he said. Finding ways to save Donaldson Bricker said the Alumni Association and the Foundation are waiting to receive official word on the intent for the building what it would be used for and how much of it would be used before starting a drive to find ways to repair the structure. “We have asked the institution for a mission and vision for the building,” she said. “Right now we are just in the formative stages. Until we know what they want to use it for, we cannot solicit funds.” Jim Potter, Northern’s director of university relations, said the institution’s auxiliary funds are limited. The funds were used to finance work in Morgan Hall earlier this decade, providing Internet, telephone and television access, but that was done by using the fund to repay a $400,000 loan from the Foundation. The auxiliary fund itself has no capital funds, and is generally in the red by the end of the year, Potter said. “This is the first time in 10 years that hasn’t happened,” he said. Tom Reynolds, who headed the MSUNorthern Foundation for 14 years before retiring in 2007, said finding money to repair the building would be difficult. “With the decrease in enrollment, it is simply a budget-saving devise to close the building,” he added. Reynolds said few grants are available for the repair of public buildings unless they are museums or listed as historical sites. “It is easier to raise money for a new building than it is to restore ,” he said. “Renovation money is not easy to raise. It would take a lot of small donations.” Groseth said he is not opposed to moving the Alumni and Foundation offices back to Donaldson if the building can be restored. He said he has encouraged the Alumni Association and Foundation to explore ways to do that. “That certainly would be an appropriate source of funds to do that,” Groseth said. Bricker said that while the capital campaign has not actually started, people wanting more information can contact the Alumni Association at 265-3770 or the Foundation at 265-3711. Gupton said he realizes that other projects for the university may take priority in its search for funding, but he believes keeping Donaldson open should be in those priorities. “Personally, I think Donaldson is the symbol of Montana State University- Northern ,” he said. “We are saying that Donaldson is one place they should put money.”
