[Englecturers] Coffee, Commons, and campus issues

[GEHaggerty at aol.com]

Carole,
 
I mentioned your complaint to the Dean (Steve Cullenberg), and he agreed  
wholeheartedly.  He asked me to forward your email, but I thought maybe  you'd 
like to write to him directly.  He really wants more social spaces  and 
remembers the old Pub as well as the old bran.  He's in favor of more  spaces for 
grads too, and he's trying to do something outside our building with  tables and 
so on.  
 
Anyway, I know he'd like to hear from you and he may even be able to help,  
which would be a great boon.
 
Cheers,
 
George
 
 
In a message dated 1/19/2008 7:21:56 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
cfabs at mindspring.com writes:

 
Hi  folks, 
Please bear with me; I’ll be as  concise as possible (though we all realize 
that brevity is not my  forte). 
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. 
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. 
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. 
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). 
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?  
It’s bad enough this is the  ugliest campus in the continental United States, 
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.) 
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). 
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:  _andy.plumley at ucr.edu_ 
(mailto:andy.plumley at ucr.edu) .   
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.   
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?! 
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. 
Cheers (and Happy  2008), 
Carole 






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