The Dean's Movements
New offices, space crisis, construction... I know everyone can't be happy with the results of the office shift. Did any group make out with more space than they had before? Any particularly egregious behavior go down during the negotiations? Thread added per anonymous request.
posted by MRP at 7:32 AM
7 Comments:
Armen's little brain child is one of the 100 best law blogs? If the ABA says it's so, it must be.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/aba_journal_blawg_100
as a recent alum, I'm curious what is going on with the reorganization and how students feel about it.
A good source informed me that the Admissions and Financial Aid offices are being displaced to Center Street in downtown Berkeley next semester. This means no more easy access if students have a financial aid question, crisis or problem, and no more spontaneous tours of the School for new admits and visitors. Applicants and new admits won't have an on-site location to have their questions answered. To marginalize these offices to accommodate student group spaces that are under-utilized and not even occupied 25% of the year seems absurd.
Why is moving Financial Aid and Admissions a bad thing? Current students never visit Admissions, and those that get financial aid might visit once per year. As for admits, you don't think that a prospective student who comes to Berkeley to visit Admissions isn't going to walk 15 minutes up the hill to see the school?
Student group space is accessed much more regularly thank 25% of the year. True, during the breaks they are a ghost town. But otherwise, most group offices are crawling with people.
11:47 - I couldn't think of departments that are more qualified to be moved off campus than admissions and financial aid. 99% of fin aid's services for current students can be accessed online or over the telephone, and if an applicant or new admit is going to the admissions office and wants to take a spontaneous visit, they can drive/bike/bus/walk over to the law school. While it has been nice to have everything Boalt-related in the same building, that doesn't seem to be an option any more, given the new faculty offices.
I really like that the CDO is moving upstairs next to the Registrar and Student Services. It seems like a much more logical placement and will hopefully result in being used more by students.
My impression is that while DE has noble goals, the practicality of it is not his concern - perhaps he knows that people will be pissed no matter what, so may as well piss everyone off at once (simultaneously hire new faculty who have no office space, kick out all student groups during office space remodel, force tenured professors to share offices, shuffle other offices around, and kick out centers permanantly. Then start construction in the courtyard). Glad this is my last year here! Have fun, 1Ls. And good luck recruiting new students next year into your groups - without space I fear there will be a gap in the social quality that makes Boalt Boalt. (and speaking of "Boalt", why were the students never formally informed that we are no longer Boalt? Typical.)
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