UWP Lecturers Coffee-house Update

[haggerty at ucr.edu]

Great news and a welcome addition!  Thanks, Carole, for all your work, and thanks for the Bach too!

George

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 27 May 2009 04:27:41 -0700
>From: Carole Fabricant <cf7516 at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Coffee-house Update  
>To: adriana.craciun at ucr.edu, Andrea.Denny-Brown at ucr.edu, carole.fabricant at ucr.edu, cf7516 at gmail.com, Caroleanne.tyler at ucr.edu, Deborah.Willis at ucr.edu, erica.edwards at ucr.edu, George.Haggerty at ucr.edu, heidi.braymanhackel at ucr.edu, jamestobias at mindspring.com, James.Tobias at ucr.edu, jennifer.doyle at ucr.edu, John.Briggs at ucr.edu, John.Ganim at ucr.edu, joseph.childers at ucr.edu, katherine.kinney at ucr.edu, keith.harris at ucr.edu, devlinucr at earthlink.net, michelle.raheja at ucr.edu, rise.axelrod at ucr.edu, rob.latham at ucr.edu, Stanley.Stewart at ucr.edu, Steven.Axelrod at ucr.edu, susan.zieger at ucr.edu, Tiffany.Lopez at ucr.edu, Traise.Yamamoto at ucr.edu, Vorris.Nunley at ucr.edu, susan.brown at ucr.edu, englecturers at listserv.ucr.edu, linda.nellany at ucr.edu, tina.feldmann at ucr.edu, cindyred at ucr.edu, kathleen.carter at ucr.edu, gsa-english at lists.ucr.edu
>
>   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
>    
>