Our Lady Of The Lake University Hit By Fire
Our Lady of the Lake University, a Roman Catholic university in Texas, which was originally a high school founded in 1895, was hit by fire yesterday. The two main spires atop the Main Building collapsed during the fire which also damaged the Gothic-style Main Building that serves its administrators and staff.
The New York Times reports that after the fire officials from the Our Lady of The Lake University’s main campus vowed to rebuild the building and to restore the damage.
Officials of a Roman Catholic university here vowed on Wednesday to rebuild after a fire on Tuesday night substantially damaged the Gothic-style Main Building, which serves as both its administrative offices and its signature on the city’s skyline. The blaze raised questions about the future of the university, which has been losing enrollment for nine years and has an endowment of only $27 million.
According to Chron.com, the loss of the Main Building is a devastating blow for a university that has been “bleeding” students for a decade and which faces questions about budget cuts, layoffs, sinking morale and speculation about whether the university would survive in the city’s competitive higher education market.
It’s not clear how the university, which has a small endowment of about $27 million, will recover financially from the loss of the Main Building. But one thing is clear – the storybook building with its towering, Camelot spires never can be replaced, said Star Carey, a marketing professor at OLLU. High winds turned powerful streams of water into mist, he said, and the age of the building and the location of the fire on its top floors further complicated the job.
State authorities claim that all students were evacuated safely from campus. No injuries were reported.
Photo: © guapolo
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