UCI On-Campus Housing Problems

I have had a Roomba for nearly a year, and it really is a gods-end for cleaning carpets, in particular with cats around. It also frees up my time. I have it scheduled to clean during the day when I'm not home.
A couple of weeks ago, my Roomba decided to break down. It didn't hold a charge in the battery anymore. I first thought maybe the battery is broken, so I got a new battery. But, no such luck.
So, I decided to contact iRobot customer support, giving them this description of the symptoms:

After resetting the charging system, the Roomba power light is red. After about 20 hours, the power light turns green, but only a light green, not the bright green that indicates a charged battery. When I take the Roomba off the power adapter, the power light goes out. And the Roomba does not start when hitting a clean button.

They determined that based on the symptoms, the Roomba would have to be replaced. Luckily, I am still within the warranty period. So, today, I got an email from iRobot customer support for a warranty replacement.
And they don't require me to send the old unit back:

Because we are not requiring you to return your current unit to us, we ask that you dispose of the robot. This Roomba has been permanently deactivated in our records.

You may strip your Roomba of its parts, such as brushes, brush cover, filter, filter frame, and particle bin, and keep them for spare parts if you wish. It is safe to simply throw away the robot itself.

It is nice to see such good customer support. I was pleasantly surprised.

Update: I have received the new Roomba last week, and it charges the batteries just fine. So it was definitely the Roomba that was broken.

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Inside Higher Ed has an article about a student who got expelled for exercising his free speech rights. The student opposed the use of student fees to build new parking garages...
It seems that this is some backwater university which is run by its president as a personal fiefdom, US Constitution be damned.

This reminded me, though, of how Bill Zeller used to run UCI Housing. He also was using student money, in this case student rent money, to rebuild an exit from Palo Verde to Anteater drive. This was done to please two professors who live across the street in the University Hills development.
Maybe this exit should be called the Bill Zeller Memorial Exit, or, given that UCI rarely names anything "Memorial", the Bill Zeller Exit. After all, since Mr. Zeller is no longer Housing director, the exit is his legacy.
And while Mr. Zeller didn't try to silence people who criticized his actions himself, he had his people try to...

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From the LA Times:

University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Michael V. Drake and Erwin Chemerinsky have reached an agreement that will return the liberal legal scholar to the dean's post at the university's new law school, the university announced Monday.

This was pretty much the only possible outcome (other than Drake's resignation.)
Still, Chancellor Drake's authority has suffered, since it is now clear that he way too easily succumbs to political pressure. It will take a long time for him to recover from this mess, and it may be best for the university if he would resign.

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At least that's the impression people get because of UCI chancellor Drake ripping up the contract with Erwin Chemerinsky, who was slated to become the first Dean of the new law school UCI wants to establish.

Dana Parsons of the LA Times calls it as it is:

UCI comes across like a backwater community college holding its first raffle.

Several faculty have called for the resignation of chancellor Drake.
Essentially, Drake has killed the law school before it even started. Nobody of any star power will actually come to the UCI law school as faculty, so the law school will end up as a third-class law school.
As the LA Times said, it was "cowardize", and

Rescinding Erwin Chemerinsky's job offer as the school's founding law dean was an act of self-destructiveness.

And the NY Times calls it "a disgraceful decision." They say:

The University of California system should admit its mistake and, with apologies, extend the offer again.
...
If the U.C.-Irvine law school proceeds without Mr. Chemerinsky, it will open under a cloud. Law professors and students should be wary of signing on with a school founded in a spirit of intellectual intolerance.[emphasis mine] Just as unfortunate, we will never get to see the law school that the talented Professor Chemerinsky would have created.

This whole fiasco shows once again that the UCI administration is completely out of their league here. They are indeed on the level of a community college, and are not fit for a UC campus.

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This Thursday's (8/23/07) LA Times has an article about a "critique of University of California operations" by UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard C. Blum.
He calls the way the UC administration operates "outmoded and dysfunctional" and calls for a "major overhaul."
From the article in the LA Times:

Blum ... said in an interview that the 10-campus UC system should cut back its administrative staff and devote more resources to education.

And,

Among his proposals Wednesday were ... eliminating millions of dollars in unnecessary or duplicative administration.

We have a prime example of "unnecessary or duplicative administration" right here at UCI Housing. Housing is way overstaffed, compared to commercial residential communities, and there is lots of duplication between Verano and Palo Verde. In my opinion, at least 1/2 of Verano and PV personnel could be let go without any significant impact on the (sadly already rather bad) service the offices provide.
Another example of a waste of money and unnecessary administration is the so-called ""co-curricular program component" aka "first-year initiative" that is now run by Bill Zeller, who before that assignment seemed to do his best to run UCI Housing into the ground.

I sincerely hope that Mr. Blum (who is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein) is successful in reforming the UC administration and getting rid of the waste that currently permeates the administration. A world-class university deserves a world-class administration, not the third-rate administrators we have right now.
In that context, another quote:

"Cumbersome and enormously expensive layers of bureaucracy have been added over the years, many of which may no longer make sense -- if indeed they ever did," Blum wrote. "Unless the University seriously and accountably commits itself to a new direction, we risk losing the perpetual battle for excellence in many areas."

Oh, and just to be clear: there are some world-class administrators at UCI, e.g., in the network operations (NACS.) I have nothing but praise for them.
But if there's light, there also is a lot of shade. And the UCI Housing administration is unfortunately on the lower end of the scale...

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