I’m not surprised you have lots of caveats. My point in posting the link is to demonstrate there are other potentially feasible approaches. If UC/SB doesn’t like that particular one, they can come up with their own. Whatever happens, good riddance to dormzilla, which was never a sensible approach.
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Let them eat cake I guess…
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We seem to be writing past each other. It was never in dispute that UCSB could develop other and potentially better plans. Where did you get that impression? I also haven’t seen anyone here defend Munger Hall as good architecture or the best outcome for students.
But you never engage on the questions of what now and how UCSB will pay for any other plan. In the real world, what is the solution now for those unhoused students (or the students paying for too expensive private off campus housing with food insecurity because they couldn’t afford it)? That’s not an academic debate on a forum, that’s happening. UCSB is a publicly subsidized school which doesn’t get to unilaterally set fees, how many students it enrolls (or how many are full pay tuition) or how much debt it takes on. At this time, no one is offering to privately fund alternatives. What real world levers within their power does UCSB now use to prevent student homelessness and hunger? Otherwise that’s a really steep price to pay for principle.
In the abstract I’m glad to see they aren’t building it and hope the attention leads to something better. But not if it means many more years of students suffering even worse outcomes. It seems irresponsible to condemn a bad solution without a better one. A great powerpoint is not an alternative. A funded solution is.
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The mostly windowless room Munger Hall at UMich gets surprisingly good reviews from residents (8.2/10 average).
Skimming reviews, a lot of people spend much of their time studying outside of their rooms (as is common at colleges in general), so most of their room time is sleeping. And like the scuttled UCSB hall, the dorm apparently has lots of space and amenities for that out of room time.
Definitely not suggesting that windowless rooms are a good thing. I’ve read the professional opinions against it from both design and building professionals and mental health experts. I do wonder if it is worse than homelessness or hunger, though (and I know which I personally would pick if unfortunately forced to).
Here’s hoping something changes and CA officials and taxpayers step up for those people.
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Writing past each other? Don’t think so. I answered your question. You just don’t like my answer. I don’t agree with the false choice you and others keep offering, but I’ll leave it at that.
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Munger in A2 has an excellent location, close to everything, including Ross Business School, the Law Quad, S. Main and South U commerical districts, frats, the IM (intramural) building and quick walk to the sports venues.
Location alone will give Munger great reviews in IMO.
So good location makes no windows worth it but being homeless or hungry does not?
Other than during the pandemic, when UMichigan abruptly closed their dorms, UMichigan doesn’t have student homelessness problem. And Munger’s location likely accounts for much of the positive reviews. It’s sits perfectly to virtually everything.
I personally didn’t like the interior of Munger on my visit, but the exterior is really nice.
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Is homeless and hungry the only alternative? I get that housing in scarce at some schools, but that doesn’t mean it’s non existent… it’s just expensive. My son’s freshman dorm at UC Berkeley is $2500 a month… more than my mortgage. It’s expensive, but available. It’s part of the cost of attendance at an otherwise economical school.
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Another option is to go higher.
But seriously, that place is really really scary. It looks like it’s from a dystopian movie about humans living underground after a nuclear apocalypse.
I would also like to point out that California often suffers from issues with their power grid, resulting in rolling blackouts.
Every person who thinks that this is a viable solution should look once again at the diagram of a “typical floor”, and imagine what it will be like when the electricity gets shut down. No light, no air circulation, on a hot late August California day. You are half a city block and three doors away from the closest window. Your floor has 400 18-year old guys in it who cannot shower on a hot day.
Now that sounds like the sort of thing that will bring all the students to UCSB!
I mean, how many students are going to take one look at uch a monstrosity and decide that they will attend Arizona State instead?
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The homelessness and food insecurity is at UCSB.
Yes I know, but you also spoke about the positive reviews at A2’s Munger residence(s). I know Munger in A2. And I said the positive reviews for A2’s Munger were likely colored by it’s great location, not because the grad students loved their rooms and interiors.
UCSB doesn’t have enough housing so students compete for private housing off campus and some can’t afford it to the point of being homeless and others afford it only by going hungry. I wasn’t aware of the latter hunger issue (though it’s logical) until I watched the student alternative proposal video which raised the related food insecurity issue.
UCSB students deserve better than housing or food insecurity or Munger Hall. Right now they are stuck with the former and there’s not an alternative place for the latter. If this were a private school with the academic reputation of UCSB they would have options to address the problem beyond accepting bad solutions from benefactors. And hopefully this doesn’t scare away other potential major donors to UC campus housing projects.
In any event, it’s done. The question now is what can be done to help these students.
Honestly though, is it any more that what we’re paying at Berkeley or what students are paying at UC Santa Cruz? Don’t get me wrong, it’s exorbitant, but it’s calculated into the cost of attendance.
Yep, understood that. But if your premise is that a good location in Michigan is enough to cause students to feel substantially net positive on average (8.2/10) about a dorm with windowless rooms, my question is whether UCSB students without any housing or who are food insecure from unaffordable private housing would not feel windowless housing was a net positive over those conditions? I find it unlikely location makes windowless “worth it” but homelessness or hunger does not.
I don’t like Munger Hall and it’s creepy that Munger is so invested in forcing windowless rooms on people as one of his signature philanthropic themes. Hopefully in a far off hindsight this will lead to a better outcome. But in the meantime, it seems weird to be more focused on celebrating the death of bad housing than worrying about what it means for the students. It’s feels like great, we closed the hideously run asylum, now let’s go home while the former patients live on the streets.
Not everyone is in a position to absorb high cost private housing into cost of attendance. If they were presumably they would do so over hunger or homelessness.
You made a comment about the reviews of Munger in A2. And I said that the location is ideal and, in real estate, it’s location, location, location. I read a few reviews and they do mention the location. So, I’m saying that the reviews of Munger in A2 are likely colored by it’s location to virtually everything. That’s it.
As for additional housing at UCSB, RFQ’s are due 8/18/23 for designing at least 3,500 undergraduate student beds to the UCSB main campus with an estimated budget of $600M – $750M. So, the project isn’t dead. And I’m sure the time horizon may not be affected that much, maybe if any.
https://www.ucsbplanroom.com/jobs/500/details/rfq-no-fm240014
Alternatively, a HS student this coming cycle, and future cycles, accepted at both UCSB and Cal Poly SLO, at least for the next few years, may want to think hard about the housing situation at UCSB and probably make the choice to attend “nearby” Cal Poly SLO.
Admittedly, D21 attends. SLO doesn’t appear to have anywhere near the level of housing issues that UCSB does. We’ve had no housing shortage issues with the last two years now “reserved” at what I would consider a reasonable level of rent for a CA college town. And her first two years were guaranteed on campus by the school.
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Cal Poly seems so convenient and affordable now compared to Berkeley! Our daughter’s dorm at slo was about $1,000 a month, her rent was that or less when she moved off campus, and she had single rooms the whole time. Our Berkeley kid will likely always have to share a room and his freshman dorm is $2,500 a month. I do think cost of attendance should be considered heavily when making final decisions. The tuition may be affordable, but housing can be restrictively expensive.
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hey guys i thought id offer my perspective on this as a current UCSB second year engineering student.
- I did tour the Munger hall mock up. It’s really not as bad as people say. Think of the rooms as being in a suite, and at the end of the hall there’s this really big lounge/great hall that has some really beautiful panoramic windows.
- As someone who lived in a very cramped Triple in Anacapa Hall, the guaranteed single is definitely a huge step up over what I was living in. Plus, there’s two bathrooms for every 8 residents, plus a living room and kitchen.
- I don’t actually spend any time in my room except to sleep LOL, I get up early in the morning and go to class, and then come back when its dark. I don’t really think the lack of windows would affect me that much, considering there are windows literally just down the hall and the weather and environment in Santa Barbara is some of the best in the world.
- with that being said, it’s definitely not a perfect solution, and I support the decision to pursue more traditional housing options, even if it takes longer.
To be fair, my view from my dorm was of a parking lot LOL. the girls wing down the hall had the beach view!