Dean Edley Townhall
[Update I: Matt has created a summary of the meeting, which is posted in the comments.]
[Update II: BHSA plans to supplement their paper petition with an electronic survey (a wise move), which should be coming through your in-boxes soon. If you are a current Boalt student, click here to respond.]
[Update III: This via Boalt's IT folks: "Having problems with AirBears? Please see this page for more information." (Yes, the irony is palpable.)]
[Update II: BHSA plans to supplement their paper petition with an electronic survey (a wise move), which should be coming through your in-boxes soon. If you are a current Boalt student, click here to respond.]
[Update III: This via Boalt's IT folks: "Having problems with AirBears? Please see this page for more information." (Yes, the irony is palpable.)]
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Stay tuned for live blogging of Dean Edley's townhall after the jump (TJ is tackling it).Labels: DE, Technology Rants
posted by Toney at 12:17 PM
48 Comments:
12:46 and there's a grand total of NINE students in the audience in Booth.
Currently, administrative personnel outstrip students 2:1.
Airbears is good and slow in here, I see.
first joke = second sentence.
Thanks to all those watching on cable television.
it's starting, and there's still more administrators here than students.
he's opened it up to questions, and there's silence. apparently students don't care about anything that's going on at this school.
And nobody brought questions...
My work here is done.
West basement will be ready for occupancy by next semester, and possibly before. Journals move over break.
He says the building between Boalt and Haas will be completed by the "next team." Indicating possibly that it'll be done after he leaves?
October 9 = party in courtyard to say goodbye to life as we know it.
October 14 = break ground in courtyard with "rubber jackhammers - no noise at all" - HA!
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West terrace rehabilitation will begin in January, and continue into summer - as an "on-going" project.
Moot Court room will be completed by beginning of spring semester, with significantly less seating than before.
Existing 1Ls will not see the south addition completed until graduation.
Sucks to be you.
Those walls being built inside 121, 122, 123, and 124 are for sound insulation. Air conditioning will be put in within the next couple weeks so the windows could be closed.
Construction will not begin until after this is completed.
Will the lines in the new Zeb run east-west or north-south?
Courtyard construction will be between 7:30am until 3:30pm and will not be done on the weekend.
Putting in double-pane glass in reading room, willing to put in sound walls in every room if proves necessary.
Have "acoustical consultants" on board.
Berring: it's official - the reason we have so many take-homes is because of an official request from the administration. 1L finals were exempted from this push, and were scheduled instead at 4pm so that there would not be any noise.
There will be construction during the daytime during the finals period this fall = plan to be studying elsewhere during this period.
There's no guarantee that the double paned glass will work for the main reading room. They plan to push people to North Addition evidently.
Encourage input via Berring's blog or directly contacting him.
Currently, administrative personnel outstrip students 2:1.
Matt, you just turned my whole world upside down!
has the administration thought about the effect of courtyard construction on Dean Prosser's diet?
can someone ask?
Edley on lockers: "we're going to fix this problem - it's clear we made a mistake."
Blamed on Dean O for sense utilization rate was low - which she based on her experience in cleaning them out at the end of the year.
Need to figure out how many we need - different solution if 200 or 400.
It's not a budget issue- it's a space and numbers issue.
BHSA petition will likely indicate how many lockers we'll need.
We'll have plan for additional lockers before fly-back week, and it will take 8-10 weeks before we'd receive them to be installed.
First 500 are physically in the building, and will be installed as early as next week.
Shows picture of lockers - and they look TINY.
They won't fit a tennis racket, but they'll fit some books. Very unlikely that two people would fit all of their books in there.
Did anybody think about that?
Question of the day!
The lockers look to be half the size of our last lockers. Which sucks. Not as bad as not having a locker at all, but its still bad.
People will also be sharing lockers. That means 4x the density of students, and if you remember the traffic flow in the old locker room then it will be a mess in that hallway.
After being berated by 3 students, Edley et al throw up their hands and say - fine we REALLY screwed this up. And they admitted there's no way to have a sharing system that will work with how small the lockers are.
on AIRBEARS = an email will come out this afternoon. They're going to work on the problem next week. Check your email for more.
Theme of the meeting: students need to email MM and comment on BB's blog with problems related to the building. Otherwise, the administration has no way of knowing there is a problem.
They would know about problems if at any given time any of them were in the building.
Some confusion over whether they're going to have book check continue after 500 people get lockers. Original plan evidently was that book check will end after the lucky few get one. Everyone else is screwed.
BHSA was the source of the fee idea for lockers and it's officially off the table now.
new lockers don't have mail slots.
whoops.
To be fair, the new lockers cannot have mail slots because they are going to be housed in a corridor. This, by order of the fire marshall. Patrick, thoughts?
This semester is the guinea pigs on 4:00pm exams. If it goes poorly, they won't do it in spring.
Building blog is going to do weekly updates now - even if nothing changes.
Vanden Huevel (without citation): emails are not a good form of communication, because people tend to lose track of email.
Emails are not a good form of communication because the #$%#$%^!#% internet doesn't work!!!
Re 1:38, don't blame the fire marshall. He obviously doesn't give a damn. If he did, this place would have been shut down long ago.
*marshal
Indeed.
Here's a summary from Matt:
For those of you who couldn't make DE's Town Hall today, I would say that the takeaway is that better communication is needed between the administration and the students.
For the administration, that means more communication directly with the student body through more frequent updating of the building blog, BHSA, and a possible student building task force.
For students, that means directing concerns to the administration by emailing M*ndi or commenting on the building blog, not by commenting here or complaining to your friends.
Additionally, here's a summary of some of the main points that were covered:
1. re: construction, generally
Everything is taking longer than they thought (which isn't surprising).
Courtyard celebration on 9 October, groundbreaking on 15 October (but no word on when DE will don the hardhat and jump on the shovel - maybe the 9th? maybe the 15th?).
Student center should be ready for occupation over winter break.
West terrace should take until sometime in the summer, perhaps longer.
South addition in the courtyard will be complete sometime near when current 1Ls graduate in 2011. Given how far out that is, I wouldn't bet on that one, though.
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2. re: construction noise
The theory is that using special rubber jackhammers will break up concrete with no noise (yeah, right).
Administration has put up sound insulation walls in the 121-122-123 corridor, and will be covering up the holes left for the windows once the air conditioning is installed.
There will be double-paned glass installed in the reading room to mitigate noise. The acoustics experts said this should do it, but if it doesn't, it is possible that similar sound-proof walls could be installed in the main reading room.
Exams have been scheduled for early evening (i.e., over the dinner hour if you eat before 7:00pm) to avoid construction noise.
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3. re: lockers
DE: We screwed up on this one.
The first 500 lockers will be installed in the downstairs hallway before the end of the month.
The administration and BHSA are working on ways to determine how many additional lockers are needed. (So, if you want one, I'd suggest you sign a petition or make it known on one of the forthcoming surveys.)
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4. re: Airbears
The tech person said they've identified the problem and are working hard to fix it, and that an email explanation is forthcoming.
It appears that someone is running a rogue DHCP server, but the explanation of what, exactly, is causing the problem was circuitous at best.
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5. communication
It sounds like DE is interested in the idea of a student building subcommittee that meets at least once a month to discuss student concerns.
Various members acted as if this was the first they've heard about some of the issues raised, suggesting that we need to email M*ndi directly, or comment more frequently on the building blog.
DE was also responsive to the idea of more frequent updates on the building blog.
Currently, administrative personnel outstrip students 2:1.
Well, that should help our US News ranking.
The south courtyard won't be done until 2011??? I shouldn't be surprised but that just SUCKS for the 1Ls. The school feels emptier than it did before b/c no one wants to stick around in such ugly conditions...and now it's just going to get worse.
Did any 2Ls or 3Ls know the fee hikes and construction were going to happen before they accepted Boalt or did the administration conveniently cover those facts up? Maybe it's my fault I didn't ask the right questions, but who knew we were in for shitty facilities and a shitty economy...
pretty sure the economy isn't any better in michigan.
but yeah, it is pretty shitty all around. On the other hand, you could have been here in 02 without construction. or wireless internet, chairs that aren't 40 years old. or top 10 rank. or alot of other improvements.
after these things the school will finally have facilities that fit the quality of education here. personally, i think it is worth it.
3:12, don't forget power for laptops.
Meant 3:19. Did you know 5/4 of the people are dyslexic?
3L here, with my recollection of these events...
When admitted, I knew that they were trying to build a completely new building jointly with Haas. It was either on the website, in the admissions materials, or both (probably both). Then, during my 1L year, I think the university got some contract from the government (or something along those lines) that required it to use the lab that Boalt and Haas had planned to knock down to build the new building. This is when we started hearing plans about the South Addition to our building in lieu of the joint Boalt/Haas brand new building. This is also when we started hearing about more serious renovations to our own building.
Anyway, my point is that the current situation only exists because the original plan for a new building got scrapped. And I'm all for the improvements, but it does suck for those of us who have to live through the construction while never getting the full benefits. But frankly, some classes were going to have to get screwed on this. No matter when they did the construction, some classes were going to have to be the ones who put up with it. It just sucks for us that it has to be us.
I'm troubled by the suggestion that we don't reap any benefits from this construction. I mean, sure, it's a pain in the ass.
But anything that improves Boalt potentially improves its quality as an institution, the students and faculty it attracts, and ultimately, its reputation. To suggest that we, as current students, don't benefit from that seems naïve to me.
I wonder what this all means for Bar/Bri classes at Boalt this upcoming summer. Hmmmm
All this South Addition stuff is exciting, but I have to ask:
Do they plan on cleaning all the mold off the existing building?
Honestly it wouldn't be so ugly if they bothered to pressure wash it and/or maintain it on the outside in some way. I would imagine the sleek new addition will look completely misplaced if the rivers of grime, mold and God knows what kind of other substances continue to grace the facade of the exisitng building. Just a thought...
- Curious Alum
Curious Alum,
They say people can add seveal thousand dollars to the value of their home, simply by painting their kitchen yellow.
There are a series of projects like that around here -- simple, cheap improvements that will go a long way toward pimping this place out. For example, a bulletin board currently located on the floor in, I believe, 121 could be moved to cover two square feet of peeling wallpaper by the door. Peepholes could be placed in the doors to the main lecture halls, so that people could see if a class was in session before barging in. And yes, the mold could be blasted from the side of the building. All that is required is a little initiative.
You, dear alum, have far more clout than me. Those donations they keep soliciting are a form of bargaining power. If you cared to send an email to DE, I'm sure he would answer your question.
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