More beds desparately needed
It’s not often that I agree with The Diamondback’s editorial page, but in the case of undergraduate housing, they couldn’t be more correct. The current shortage of on-campus housing, which is kicking 556 rising seniors off-campus (myself included), is nothing less than outrageous.
The shortage of housing is nothing new; it has been nearly impossible for transfer students to get on-campus housing for years. What is particularly disturbing, however, is how little has been done to solve the problem, and the housing waitlist has ballooned year after year. However, placing blame aside, one thing is clear – the university desperately needs more undergraduate student housing. If the university ever hopes of achieving its goal of being a top-ten public institution, it must find a way to house students who want to live on the campus. After all, being a great academic institution is only a part of the collegiate picture.
I implore Resident Life, the University Administration and the Board of Regents to take a hard look at the housing crisis here and find a real solution. I can promise that myself, and the Student Government Association, will be trying to do the same. The private housing market has proven that it cannot keep up with the rising demand. We desperately need more on-campus undergraduate housing, and we need it now.
Tad GreenleafJuniorSpeaker of the LegislatureStudent Government Association
Welcome to the world of transfer students
Hey displaced seniors: no chance for on-campus housing? Forced to commute and live miles from the campus? Can’t afford the crazy rent in this crime riddled town?
Welcome to the world of transfer students. I guess now that the housing crisis finally hit the “real” students on this campus, the problem actually matters. Transfers almost always get shut out of on-campus housing (and pretty much everything else for that matter) and nobody gives a damn. We’ll see what comes out of this now that seniors got the short end of the stick.
Steven O. GuevaraJuniorEconomics
Playing up stereotypes
This letter is a response to the April 5 letter, “The Fall Ball benefits us all.” I must say, I am quite embarrassed by my “engineering legislators.” First of all, I would like to make a minor correction to their facts. They stated that Nariman Farvardin is the dean of the electrical and computer engineering department. He was; however, almost seven years ago, Farvardin became the dean of A. James Clark School of Engineering. The only explanation for this minor hiccup is that our dear legislators couldn’t “foster relationships between all parties, something that is particularly difficult for engineers and other technical majors,” and thus didn’t waste time with silly introductions, but went straight to the stress and strain calculations the floor of the Alumni Center would experience due to the weight of the dancers. It’s quite an involved calculation.
Maybe, if our dear legislators took a break from working so hard on said calculations for Spring Serenade, they would actually have time to shake hands with the dean of their college, exchange names, and start fostering that relationship. And maybe, if they stopped stereotyping the rest of us, we would actually want to foster relationships with them.
As these two have worked so hard on this “Fall Ball” (in their defense, it’s difficult to tell what time of day or year it is when you’re cooped up in a dark, subterranean computer lab all day), I would like to invite them to come meet some of the Clark School Ambassadors who represent the engineering school. We know a lot of fun facts about engineering, the college and the people in it, and would love to give you more information so you can represent us.
Sibylle WalterSeniorAerospace engineering
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