UCI On-Campus Housing Problems

Lisa Cornish, the UCI Housing director, has sent out an email on a new cat policy, which was under discussion for some time:

From: "Cornish, Lisa" <arcornis at uci dot edu>
Date: April 1, 2010 11:53:20 AM PDT
Subject: Cat policy decision

...
I do not want to delay, any further, informing you that I have a decision on the Cat Policy Review. Effective April 19, 2010, there will be a two year moratorium during which new clients to Palo Verde and Verano Place Housing will not be allowed to bring cats into the community or acquire them.
...
I announced this decision to the GFH staff today and will request that the current clients in the communities be informed by resident newsletter on April 16th. Efforts to inform prospective clients will be underway immediately after the community announcements.

For prospective graduate students, this is pretty much a bait-and-switch. They are supposed to accept or decline an offer from UCI by April 15, right before they will be informed that they can't have pet cats in housing.
What a great way to p*ss off incoming students even before they have set a foot on campus...

Update: It seems they changed the announcement timings quickly after the April 15 date was pointed out to them. From another email from Lisa Cornish:

I will move all communication up. Website notification today, current residents tomorrow. Waitlist residents next week.

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I have been forwarded a message that the Palo Verde Housing office sent out earlier today to all residents living in Palo Verde.
This message leaves me speechless. It is completely tasteless and offensive. Quite frankly, this smacks of Nazi-style tagging of people.
Are these people completely out of their mind??? What's next? Yellow stars???

As part of a precautionary measure to help prevent the spread of the flu, the Palo Verde Housing office will be delivering "Notice of Sick Anteater" door hangers to each apartment. In the event that you, your family member(s), or apartment mate(s) experience flu like symptoms, please place the door hanger on the front door of your apartment.

If you would like additional door hangers, please stop by the Palo Verde Housing office during normal business hours.

Flu Information and Updates are available at :
http://www.ehs.uci.edu/flu

I hope somebody gets fired over this.

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As I mentioned quite some time ago, Bill Zeller, then Housing Director at UCI, got fired from his position as Housing Director after completely botching the job he was tasked to do.
Of course, this being academia, the university didn't really fire him, they just moved him around to another position.
He eventually ended up as the Director of the Graduate Student and Postdoc Resource Center.
This shows again, in the UCI administration, you can screw up in your job, and they just give you another job to screw up again.
This is yet another example of where your tax money gets wasted. With the California budget crisis, they really should fire all these under-performers and incompetents. That would save us tax payers a nice chunk of money, and at the same time, would improve the administration of higher education in California.

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With Lisa Cornish now UCI's Housing director, the so-called "Graduate First-Year Initiative", GFYI, initiated by her predecessor Bill Zeller, is now done for.
From an email from the current AGS president:

In my conversation with Lisa Cornish last week the status of the GFYI came
up. Lisa has listened to the residents' councils (who have not favored
this program and its subsidizing from rent monies) and has agreed to NOT
hire to fill the vacancy. This in effect "kills" the GFYI program.

This sure is good news. I really hope that this is the start of housing working with the community representatives, not against them.

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On July 1, Lisa Cornish, who had been the Executive Director of Graduate and Family Housing, took over the position of Senior Executive Director of Housing.
This means the reign of Bill Zeller is officially over.
The email from Dan Dooros, Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, says in part:

Starting July 1, 2008 Lisa Cornish will hold the title of Senior Executive Director of Housing reporting to me. In this capacity undergraduate and graduate housing, information and technology and Planning, Research, and Administration will report to Lisa.
...
This reorganization provides Housing with a much needed full-time leader who will be exclusively responsible for housing, accessible on a daily basis, and one who is uniquely qualified for the job.

This was long overdue. Whenever I had to do with Lisa, I found her competent and to the point, something I could never say with "slick Bill".
I wish her luck and hope UCI Housing changes to the better now.