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<P>Hello all,</P>
<P>Hear, hear, and bravo, Carole. This is what happens when educational institutions are run as a for-profit business. I cannot help but wonder whether a university that does not enable faculty and students to meet outside of classes and discuss their ideas or lack thereof, be it over a beer or a cup of coffee, can rightly be called a university. There has to be a place where open dialogue can take place and people from various disciplines can concregate, exchange ideas, and argue to their hearts' content. Without a sanctuary of this sort, creative and off-beat ideas that never surface in a formal setting will remain locked up in tiny little apartments or dorm rooms. Irate international postdocs and professors frequently lament what is going on at UCR. People who come here from abroad to establish a community of friends and fellow scholars find themselves unable to do so. Many have left Riverside for this very reason. </P>
<P>I will write to Mr. P right away.</P>
<P>Erla</P>
<P><BR><BR><BR> </P>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid">-----Original Message----- <BR>From: Carole Fabricant <CFABS@MINDSPRING.COM><BR>Sent: Jan 19, 2008 7:21 PM <BR>To: rise.axelrod@ucr.edu, Steven.Axelrod@ucr.edu, John.Briggs@ucr.edu, joseph.childers@ucr.edu, Andrea.Denny-Brown@ucr.edu, kimberly.devlin@ucr.edu, devlinucr@earthlink.net, jennifer.doyle@ucr.edu, Emory.Elliott@ucr.edu, cfabs@mindspring.com, carole.fabricant@ucr.edu, John.Ganim@ucr.edu, George.Haggerty@ucr.edu, GEHaggerty@aol.com, keith.harris@ucr.edu, KATHERINE.KINNEY@ucr.edu, Tiffany.Lopez@ucr.edu, Vorris.Nunley@ucr.edu, Toby.Miller@ucr.edu, michelle.raheja@ucr.edu, Stanley.Stewart@ucr.edu, jamestobias@mindspring.com, James.Tobias@ucr.edu, Caroleanne.tyler@ucr.edu, Deborah.Willis@ucr.edu, Traise.Yamamoto@ucr.edu, susan.zieger@ucr.edu, susanz@ucr.edu, lindon.barrett@ucr.edu, heidi.braymanhackel@ucr.edu, lindon.barrett@ucr.edu, heidi.braymanhackel@ucr.edu, erica.edwards@ucr.edu, setsu.shigematsu@ucr.edu <BR>Cc: englecturers@lists.ucr.edu, 'Tina Feldmann' <TINA.FELDMANN@UCR.EDU>, 'Linda Nellany' <LINDA.NELLANY@UCR.EDU>, 'kathleen Carter' <KATHLEEN.CARTER@UCR.EDU>, susan.brown@ucr.edu <BR>Subject: [Englecturers] Coffee, Commons, and campus issues <BR><BR><ZZZHTML xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><ZZZHEAD><ZZZMETA content="text/html; charset=us-ascii" http-equiv="Content-Type"><ZZZMETA name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:SmartTagType name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:SmartTagType><o:SmartTagType name="country-region" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:SmartTagType><ZZZ!--[IF !mso]>
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<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Hi folks,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">It’s bad enough this is the ugliest campus in the continental <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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" target=_blank>andy.plumley@ucr.edu</A>. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; 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 face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Cheers (and Happy 2008),<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">Carole<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
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Dr. Erla Maria Marteinsdottir
Department of English
University of California, Riverside
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." - Voltaire
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