2/6/2012: Greg Bolt tackles the EMU expansion in the RG and why the students don’t want what Robin Holmes wants. Follow the EMU tag below for links to the many other articles on this, there are two sides to this story and I think the RG is giving the administration a bit too much credibility.
Dog says
for 160 million dollars this place better
be a hell of a lot more dedicated to our academic mission than the Arena/Jock Box/
Alumni Center.
The remodeled EMU should contain
a) a significant number of real classrooms
b) real production studios for student use
c) a smaller performance “classroom”
d) a computer lab that molds to the present time
and not tables with desktops on them
e) more damn lunch choices than the present one
however, instead, it looks like UO admin wants
to build another palace. What is the point of
continuing to do this and therefore sacrifice
academic learning space? Someone please explain
that to this old dog.
Dog,
The EMU has no business containing classrooms of any kind. The purpose of any student union is as a gathering place for the student community and as a centralized location for students’ educational experience outside the classroom. Buildings like the Jock Box should have more classrooms that are available to the university at large, especially considering they are subsidized by such. But the Student Union is primarily financed by student fees; using I-fee money to pay for academics is just as bad as athletics mooching from academics. Or perhaps worse, because spending the I-fee on academics is illegal.
okay then call them “conference” facilities.
And for heaven’s sake get some conference facilities in the EMU. We have these conferences/events and there’s no where to have them. We are all trying to get the same venues and unless the conference organizer books the room(s) a year in advance, there is no place to go. Tried to book a room in the jock box and they wanted $50/hour just for the room. And, when its search season the room availability is even slimmer.
Also, how can the UO make a good impression on the event participants when the rooms are crappy, that’s if you can get a room.
Dog also favors
1) Knocking down the EMU and replace it with a classroom building in the center of
campus.
2) Make the new EMU over by the student rec center by knocking down Erlinger which is a pretty useless building by now. Possibly this could be combined with renovating mac court.
3) put in more multi-colored fire hydrants along university ave – dogs like that
kind of thing
Old Mac Court is where the new parkade is going to be located.
And here I thought that dogs were colorblind. but this dog clearly has some important insights to share. Keep it coming, dog. a young latino TTfaculty member.
The most important academic use of the proposed emu renovation is not class rooms, but the concert hall, which would be used by the school of music and dance. The EMU is funded about 50% by i-fees and rest by earned revenue. I-fee $ would not be used for academics. The proposal would substantially enhance conferencing opportunities, as well as add new food service and a pub. Sure hope this gets approved by students, it’s a heavily used deteriorating building in the heart of campus. Probably the only destination on campus that nearly every student and faculty uses in some fashion.
yeah but dogs can’t dance …
is there not a new theater on campus and other venues in the music school?
but the issue here does not seem to be the theater per se, but rather the lack of consultation with students, and that parallels other signs of hubris that are readily visible in other pronouncements from Johnson Hall.