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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Hi folks,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Please bear with me; I’ll be as concise as possible
(though we all realize that brevity is not my forte).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Returning to campus after the holiday break (oh joy!), I
arranged to meet a friend near the new student Commons so that we could sit for
a bit and catch up on things over a cappuccino. We were appalled to
discover that the coffee/espresso bar that had always been part of the indoor
cafeteria in the old Commons was no longer there – it had apparently been
unceremoniously booted out, presumably to make room to squeeze in a few more of
the 28 different varieties of the same fast-food crap that are now on offer
there. No one could tell us where it had disappeared to. Finally a
student pointed vaguely in the direction of the Bookstore and told us the
coffee bar had been moved into a truck (!!) that was located somewhere out
yonder. By this time my friend had to leave but I (intrepid explorer that
I am) decided to head out and search for it myself, urged on by a strong
feeling that at a campus of – what is it now, 16,000 students? –
one should be able to purchase a cappuccino and have a pleasant place to sit
down and drink it. After ‘beating the bush’ for about a
half-hour and asking many people about its location (no one knew, not even
inside the Bookstore) I finally stumbled onto it. It was indeed housed in
a truck – literally; parked out in the boonies past the Bookstore.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Needless to say, it’s now a solely cash-and-carry
operation. There’s no place nearby to sit and savor the coffee
while conversing with friends or reading a book. I might add there’s
no place to sit and rest for the makers of the cappuccino either. They’re
on their feet all day long, standing in a drafty truck without heating or any
amenities whatever. I spoke at length with one of them (whom I knew from
the old indoor espresso bar) and she complained bitterly about the working
conditions and the arbitrary decision to banish the bar from the Commons proper
(fellow union members, take note). I bought a cappuccino and scurried
back to my office – after all, there’s nowhere in the Commons area
that’s conducive to hanging out for any length of time more than 3
seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>As an aside, I might add that there’s no such place anywhere
else on campus either. A few years back the Barn was a pleasant, comfy,
kick-back kind of place where you could hang out and talk to friends over a
couple of beers. The last time I went in there it had metamorphosed into
some grotesque version of a tacky provincial airport terminal cafeteria –
which, to add insult to injury, no longer even served beer (or much else that
one would want, as far as I could tell). I promptly left the premises and
haven’t returned since.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Perhaps some of you may think this matter is trivial, but I
myself find this situation not only infuriating and appalling, but also an only
too apt reflection of other larger (and unquestionably serious) problems with
the campus. In the supposedly ‘bad’ old days, when UCR was
struggling for survival with 4500 students, the Commons area had a comfortable,
funky coffee-house where people could get together, enjoy their daily dose of
java, talk, plan lessons or mayhem, or whatever. Now that we’re “thriving”
(ahem), with an ever-growing student body, we have a Commons that’s about
as homey and comfortable as a food court in a cheesy down-scale shopping mall –
one that doesn’t even off the kind of basic amenities one would take for
granted even on a campus like Podunk State (which I daresay UCR is beginning to
resemble more and more).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The corporate bureaucrats who made the decision about what
the Commons should look like and what should and shouldn’t be housed in
it are clearly ‘kissing cousins’ to the ones who are making
educational and institutional decisions that affect every one of us on a daily
basis. Their decision to throw out the espresso bar no doubt reflects
their desire for a rapid turnover of customers in the Commons – ones willing
to pay a chunk to stuff their faces with overpriced fast food (disguised as
different ‘ethnic’ [!] ‘cuisines’ [!!]) and then leave
the premises to make room for other customers who will do the same.
Obviously people who only want to buy a cup of coffee and sit for a while
nursing it while doing other things are not the kind of consumers these
bureaucrats want – after all, they take up space and are paying
relatively little for the ‘privilege’ of doing so. The last
thing these bureaucrats want to do is to provide a place where students and
faculty can gather, leisurely sip their drug of choice, and talk – who knows,
maybe even (horrors!) conspire, agitate, and organize. Am I the only one
who sees a parallel with the recent uncontrolled growth of the campus, which
has resulted in a mindless processing of bodies through the system as quickly
as possible, regardless of whether or not anything even vaguely resembling a ‘real’
(meaningful) education is taking place? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>It’s bad enough this is the ugliest campus in the
continental <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
does it also have to be the most inhospitable and uncivilized? No wonder most
of the newer faculty live as far from campus as possible – and why, after
finishing one’s classes, one wants to ‘get the hell out of Dodge’
as quickly as possible. What is there to hang around for? I teach
evening classes, and walking across campus to and from them is like walking
through a cemetery – and an especially creepy one at that. Nothing
is open, there’s no place to sit down and have a quick coffee or snack,
there’s absolutely nothing to keep a body (or mind, or soul) alive.
Is it any wonder that the minute class ends my students scurry away like rats
off a sinking ship, anxious to escape the dark, forbidding campus with life and
limb intact? (Apparently the Powers That Be in this joint, for all their
chest-thumping promotion of new “cutting-edge” technologies, have
never heard of that good old-fashioned one called electricity.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>In my opinion, the saddest thing about this situation is
that many of our undergrads who are natives of the ‘Inland Empire’,
having basically grown up in the middle of an endless shopping mall, having
nothing to compare this campus with and thus don’t know any better –
have no clue that there are actually (far more desirable and attractive)
alternatives out there. They think this is what a university should look
like and what it should be offering those who attend it. It doesn’t
occur to them that a campus can, and should, be held to account for providing so
pitifully little (in basic resources and amenities) in exchange for so much (in
tuition and other fees).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The entire corporate-bureaucratic structure of the
university is to blame for these lamentable circumstances; but the person most
immediately and directly responsible for overseeing the Commons, and for
banishing the coffee bar from it, is a man by the name of Andy Plumley, who’s
an Assistant Vice-Chancellor in the Housing Services Administration. If
any of the points I’ve made in this email strike a sympathetic chord in
you (regardless of whether or not you’re a coffee addict like me, or even
a coffee drinker at all), I would urge you to drop Mr. Plumley a brief email
(even one line would do, and would take all of 5 seconds to send) expressing
your displeasure that the espress bar was removed from the Commons and
requesting that it be returned as soon as possible. His email address
is: <a href="mailto:andy.plumley@ucr.edu">andy.plumley@ucr.edu</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Yes, I know there’s a coffee kiosk near us, outside
the Administration Bldg. (or whatever the hell it’s now being used for),
and like many of you I do patronize it on a fairly regular basis, buying a
cappuccino and bringing it back to my office. But the kiosk doesn’t
address the need for something that at least approximates a ‘public space’
(I realize that’s a dirty word these days in the last stages of advanced
capitalism, with its privatization of just about everything) where one can
escape the solitary confines of one’s designated ‘hole’
(i.e., office) and briefly mingle and converse with others (whether students or
colleagues) over suitable restorative refreshment. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>It’s true that sending an email to Mr. Plumley will
not help save the whales or slow global warming or stop the takeover of the U.S.
Supreme Court by right-wing ideologues. But it’s a small and simple
step each of us can take to try to rectify a small and simple problem in our
immediate work-place environs – and best of all, it’s a step that
(assuming a critical mass of people taking it) has a real chance of achieving
its desired ends. The return of the espresso bar to the Commons is only
the tip of the iceberg when we consider the problems with the campus from the
broadest perspective, but one has to begin somewhere – and where better
than with a bracing cup of java?!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Thank you for reading and giving serious consideration to
this (admittedly overlong) email. Special thanks to those of you who
write to Mr. Plumley about this matter. And an extra special thank you to
those who “cc” me in your email, or who drop me a separate note
letting me know you sent one. Having a realistic estimate of the number
of people who requested the return of the espresso bar will help me in any
future correspondence I might have with Mr. P. (or his handlers). I’d
like to think that I’m not just pushing my own pet peeve here but that I’m
speaking for many of my colleagues in this matter.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Cheers (and Happy 2008),<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Carole<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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