LETTERS TO THE CHANCELLOR

Dear Colleagues:

These excerpts from some "Letters to the Chancellor" sent to my Website will give you a flavor of the feedback I receive from people at UCSD and out in the community. I thank everyone who has written. I learn from each letter, and I'm glad to share these ideas and my own responses with all of you.

With warm regards,

Marye Anne Fox

24-hour Campus “Superstore”

I'm currently a fourth-year student at UCSD. I've come up with an idea to create a mini campus "super-store," similar to a Wal-Mart, which would have name-brand companies provide their products directly to the store (clothing, food, etc.). It would be a student-run initiative, employing only students. Ideally, this store would be open 24 hours a day. For food items, there would be free delivery to on-campus housing 24 hours a day. I'm interested in knowing if there are any barriers to creating this type of store, especially since my goal is to have it on campus.

Chancellor Fox: I’m always glad to hear new ideas about campus improvements from students, and this proposal is an interesting one. An obstacle to your proposal is the shortage of indoor space. As a fourth-year student, you have seen the tremendous growth in the size of our campus community. That growth has placed many demands on campus space. However, I believe that the planned expansion of the Price Center will create new opportunities for outlets that provide services to students and the campus. So I encourage you to keep track of the expansion and share ideas like this with your elected representatives in the Associated Students.

UCSD Farmer’s Market

I am a current student at UCSD. Today we students learn that UCSD will be sponsoring a Farmer's Market every Tuesday on Library Walk. I am in total disagreement with this on two levels.

1) UCSD is supposed to be an institution of learning. The California taxpayers should not have to support UCSD's greedy endeavors as it sells itself from academics to a zoo of commercial interests. Since this is the current trend, I want a piece of the pie.

2) Library Walk is already cluttered with a slew of obstacles and a trash of people trying to sell this, sign a student up for that, and all in all, get in the way. Ever try walking from center hall to another class anywhere on campus around noon? You'll be late. But don't worry, education was only hindered due to economic interests of the college—something UCSD excels at.

Solution, get the market out of the college and fire the person that is responsible for its approval remove all vendors and social groups that hinder a student’s ability to travel around campus. And most important of all, stop trying to squeeze every last penny out of the students you pretend to be helping.

Chancellor Fox: The UCSD Farmer’s Market was launched because many members of the campus community – students, faculty, and staff – expressed interest in buying fresh produce directly from farmers at a convenient campus location. The feedback on this new weekly service has been largely positive, and many students believe that the vendors and student booths along Library Walk help enliven the campus atmosphere. I do understand your frustration with the congestion that sometimes results, and I want to assure you that we instituted the Farmer’s Market in response to campus interest, and not to profit from the fees we charge our vendors. We invite the vendors to set up on campus because they offer students an array of interesting and healthful products at reasonable prices.

Campus Night Concerts

I am a neighbor to UCSD, as well as a graduate of UCSD. I know that this is the firstweek of classes, with students moving onto campus, and I know that the university and associated groups have events to welcome the new and returning students back to campus. My one complaint is the concert going on at the moment (it's now about 9:30 PM) that began a few minutes before 9:00. It's really audible to the neighborhood south of the campus across La Jolla Village Drive from the La Jolla Playhouse, and it being a weeknight, is a bit annoying. It's much more understandable on a weekend, but many of us get up early for work and so go to bed early as well. I don't know where on campus the concert is taking place, but it would be really great if in the future this amplification of noise could be avoided or reduced.

Chancellor Fox: I appreciate your message because UCSD wants to be a good neighbor and a community asset. To do that, we need to keep the lines of communication open with area residents. I know that some campus organizations have scheduled a number of “back to school” celebrations, and I very much regret that this one was loud enough at 9:30 p.m. to be heard off campus. I have relayed this concern to the vice chancellors and also to our Office of Government and Community Relations (you can visit their Website at: http://gcr.ucsd.edu/). Thank you for writing.

Sexual Harassment

Welcome aboard!!!! I was hoping you could look at the possibility of having mandatory sexual harassment training for ALL campus employees. That would include ALL faculty, staff, student workers, and administrators. As a supervisor,

I have encountered at least 4 separate cases of sexual harassment by either patrons or staff towards student workers. The amount of time and money involved in following up on such cases is enormous. Merely providing emails to “all@ UCSD” or brochures or mention of a website for resources (Office of Sexual Harassment & Prevention) is not enough! Had employees been required to attend training as a part of their employment, much in the same way that Health & Safety training is required, at least two of these cases could have been avoided. For safety and liability concerns, I would strongly urge you to make this training mandatory for everyone.

Chancellor Fox: I agree that it is important for our campus community to become educated about the very real issue of sexual harassment, including an understanding of inappropriate conduct and steps that can be taken to stop harassment. The Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention and Policy offers excellent training programs for employees, including an interactive online training program at http://oshpp.ucsd.edu. And new legislation signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 30 (AB 1825) makes sexual harassment training mandatory for state supervisors; this will have a substantial impact on our campus training activities. It is distressing to think that anyone in our learning and working environment has been subjected to such behavior. I will consult with the vice chancellors and with the Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention and Policy to see how we might better communicate to students, faculty and staff the educational programs we offer about sexual harassment prevention.

Triton Spirit

On behalf of myself, Triton Tide and the rest of the athletics support community here at UCSD, I would like to extend my thanks to you for the commitment to athletics you have shown in the early days of your tenure. As someone who has spent a great deal of time over the past three years working to improve the campus climate through spirit, and who believes in the unifying impact sports can have here, I am excited! While there has been a great deal of growth and progress toward making UCSD the vibrant campus it has the potential to be, gains with respect to athletics have always seemed to come with the begrudging approval of upper administration. Whether or not that was simply a student perception, I do not know. It is certainly a perception I look forward to seeing changed, and I am confident that you feel the same way. I was pleased to meet you personally on Friday night at the volleyball game, and even more pleased to see you out supporting the girls. I hope to run into you and Jim at many more athletic events this year and I eagerly anticipate partnering with you to help this campus achieve its enormous potential.

Chancellor Fox: My husband, Jim, and I really enjoy Triton games and meets, and we are delighted to see great enthusiasm among Triton fans. I am a firm believer in the value of college athletics, both intercollegiate and recreational. Physical fitness is a life-long pursuit; athletic competitions foster team spirit and group excellence. The student-athletes in our 23 Triton teams are exemplary young people, and we can all take pride in the 29 national championships that UCSD has won in seven different sports. I urge all students to take advantage of UCSD’s recreational sports programs, and I invite everyone on campus to cheer on the Tritons at a future sports event.

I read some disturbing news today about UCSD Student Affairs personnel threatening to evict all of the student run co-ops! I am utterly appalled by this news! The co-ops offer a very nice and affordable services and goods to the students of UCSD. Groundworks Books offers students a place to access alternative media sources that they normally would not have exposure to. The General Store co-op offers students a place to buy items at a highly discounted rate, which is much needed for students who do not have a large bank account or families that can give their children supple allowances. The Che Cafe and the Food co-op are the only places on campus that students can purchase 100% vegan or vegetarian foods, which is priceless to those of us that are vegan or vegetarian.

Chancellor Fox, these places are invaluable and priceless to the students who use and depend on them. Please don't allow Student Affairs to act rashly and force out an integral part of this diverse campus!!

Thank you for your time!!

Please don't get rid of the Che Café, it's the only space on campus with progressive people on it. The condition like its people aren't very attractive to the naked eye, but with just a small deep look at what's going on inside you can find great dialogue about politics and culture. It's just not the Café Roma where the topic isn't the conversation it's the aesthetics of the place first. At the Che, the aesthetics lets you loosen up on dominant ideas and lets you look at the other side of things. Besides there's something beautiful about how it reflects the rest of society that isn't funded by corporate culture, like ROMA at the Price Center. It’s broken down, like countries that don't have money from great corporations, but at the same time, it's a collective; getting rid of the building only gets rid of the subculture, and getting rid of any marginalized culture is like genocide of an ideology that is struggling to survive against the major context of UCSD.

UCSD has enough glass buildings that scared away the Monarch butterflies of the 60's, why not leave the Che Café to the people, the students.Now that I'm in New York, I see that building as not that bad compared to some of the old buildings here and yet people use every inch of space as sacred. I hope you understand that the majority should not rule over the minority this time, not again, I mean Dominant culture has everything, why can't they give us just this?

I am writing in support of the student run co-ops on the UCSD campus. My understanding is that the co-ops are currently being threatened with eviction from campus or at least from their current location near the Mandeville Auditorium. I don't understand all the issues involved in the dispute but I would like to ask that you do whatever is possible to maintain this vital resource on campus.

While I believe all of the UCSD co-ops provide valuable services, the Food Co-op is the one that I utilize most frequently. I am a librarian at UCSD and, since working here over 2 years, continue to be amazed at the lack of nutritional food options here at UCSD. I value highly the ability to get organic, good-quality food at the store, all for a very reasonable price.

I've seen other benefits to the co-ops as well. It gives students an opportunity not just to work somewhere on campus but to have an investment in its success by acting as a co-owner. In turn, I think this produces a more positive attitude and care in what you're doing. I'm always amazed by the professionalism and sincerity expressed by the co-op workers. I in turn feel better about the food choices I'm making and where I'm investing my money as a consumer. Overall I think the co-ops bring an extremely positive attitude to the campus and a nice alternative to the campus-run services that feel less and less personalized all the time.

In addition, I would like to note I'm glad to see the presence of the Farmers Market now on Tuesdays; this is a step in the right direction as far as food services. This campus could do much better with providing a diversity of food options. It should take UC Berkeley as a model which allows numerous food cart vendors to set up around campus, providing an array of food options, at a reasonable price. This would also help alleviate the congestion at the Price Center which has become nearly inaccessible during the hours of 11am-2pm.

I would appreciate your attention to ensuring the continued existence of the co-ops as well as alternative ways to improve food services on this campus.

Please accept my belated welcome to UCSD, along with best wishes for your work here. I am an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department, and I wanted to send on this quick note to urge you and the Administration to find some workable resolution to the stalemate over the lease for the UCSD Co-ops.

I have been at UCSD for twelve years now, and during that time I have been involved as Academic Senate representative to the University Centers Advisory Board, and I have served as a faculty member of the Coops Oversight committee. In short, I do have some sense of the issues and difficulties involved with the Co-ops, although I have not been involved in the last five or six years. Based on that experience, I do want to convey my strong sense that the Co-ops are a very important UCSD institution, and that evicting them from campus would be tremendous loss and a public-relations disaster.

Despite the difficulties they have at times faced, the Co-ops contribute substantially to the quality of life on campus; they serve student needs in very concrete ways, and they provide important experience to the students who run them, often (even if not always) with enormous dedication and considerable success. They are one of the best examples on campus of a bottom-up, student initiated institution that has succeeded in very concrete ways. They have a long history in our still-young institution; every effort should be made to preserve them as independent, student-run, not-for-profit organizations. I urge you to use your office to ensure their continued existence on campus.

For more information contact chancellor@ucsd.edu

Copyright ©2004 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.