UWP Lecturers Coffee-house Update

[Carole Fabricant]

Hi folks,

I've been meaning to send an email out for the past several weeks but have
been overwhelmed with other stuff.  I still am but did want to take out a
moment to let you know that (tantara) there WILL be a coffee-house on campus
starting in the fall quarter.  It will be a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
outlet.  Over the past weeks I've been in phone contact with Cheryl Garner,
the new Director of Dining Services, and she assures me that it's slated to
open no later than the end of September (though she's hoping for an opening
earlier, around Sept. 10).  Mind you, my last conversation with her predated
the latest round of financial threats by our Great Governator (especially
aimed at matters related to education) following the defeat of his budgetary
proposals.  But it sounds like the coffee-house is pretty much a done deal
and that they'll be working on it all summer.

The good news is that it's been relocated to a much better (i.e., larger)
venue (a building that stands by itself in the Hub) than the one originally
planned (the cramped space that was once used as the Printing and Repro
Office), and that it will remain open until late into the evening.  I spoke
to Ms. Garner about the need for a proper setting and ambience (which
includes the right kind of seating, lighting, and music).  She told me there
will be some comfortable (couch-like) seating and that the idea is to
have two separate 'environments', each with different features -- one for
undergraduates (wanting a place to study, check out YouTube and play with
their high-tech gadgets, etc.) and the other for us (ahem) older folks,
interested in a place to stretch out and indulge our caffeine habit while
quietly reading a book or conversing with friends and colleagues.  In theory
that sounds pretty good -- but we're all well aware of the often yawning gap
between theory and practice so I remain more than a little skeptical about
how all this will work out. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I made a few other suggestions -- about the need for EDIBLE pastries and
sandwiches, for an oven to heat stuff up in, and for the sale of the New
York Times on a daily basis (having to read a rag sheet like the Riverside
Enterprise or, these days, even the LA Times doesn't exactly enhance one's
coffee-house experience).  I also stressed the need for real as well as
paper cups (definitely more civilized --  and even makes the coffee taste
better).  If you have any additional suggestions or ideas, do let me know
and I'll pass them along to Garner.

Not that she'll necessary be responsive to them -- this whole venture is
being run by corporate and marketing types for whom a coffee-house is simply
a source of profit (or a place to be closed if unprofitable) and not, as I
and I hope all of you view it, an essential campus 'institution'
that functions as a complement and extension of the classroom and lecture
hall.  So I'm really hoping all of you will make a point of patronizing the
coffee-house once it opens, even if you don't drink coffee (it will of
course also offer tea and other beverages), and that you spread the word to
friends and acquaintances in other departments.  It's absolutely
mindboggling that a campus of 17,000 students has gone this long without a
coffee-house (and without much of anything else, as far as I can tell -- no
pub, no faculty club, the list is endless), and we should do what we can to
support its existence once it does open.

Just a quick postscript here:  Because the coffee-house is part of a
corporate chain there's unfortunately no possibility of naming it after
Lindon, as I'd suggested in my last email.  What planet was I on when I was
envisioning a coffee-house that would be a unique and individual place, a
kind of funky venue that would allow for personal touches like that?!  I'm
hoping (and assuming) that during the past weeks of my sabbatical, members
of the department have come up with other ways of paying tribute to Lindon's
memory.

A parting thought:  "Ah, how sweet the coffee tastes,/More delicious than a
thousand kisses,/Mellower than muscatel wine./Coffee, coffee I must
have,/And if someone wishes to give me pleasure,/Ah, then pour me out some
coffee!"  (J.S. Bach, "The Coffee Cantata")

Cheers,
Carole
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