"BU dorm offers a study in luxury" by Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | September 2, 2009
That's not how I remember it. I think the sink overflowing when you flushed the toilet was the first clue.
.... Despite the million-dollar vista, this is not the penthouse suite of a four-star hotel or a luxury condominium in the Back Bay. It’s the common room of a Boston University dorm, perhaps the most opulent residence hall to ever grace the local college landscape. Name tags taped to students’ doors say it all: “Skyview from the Center of the BUniverse.’’
Oh, oh, oh, how ELITIST, SMUG, and ARROGANT -- and the FRONT-PAGE FEATURE to boot! THIS is why you are TANKING, Glob! BITTER INSULTS while CRAPPING on the PUBLIC isn't winning you any points.
The view is not the only amenity. So luxurious is the 960-bed dorm that parents’ jaws dropped in disbelief when they helped their children move in last week. The suites of singles and doubles, with elegantly furnished common rooms, large private baths, walk-in closets, and floor-length mirrors, resemble nothing like what older generations remember of their college housing - sterile cinder-block boxes with institutional bunk beds and a communal bathroom down the hall.
“Life is tough,’’ said Laurie Hanafin, as she pushed a large orange crate full of her daughter’s belongings into her sixth-floor suite. “I’m going back to college. If there’s a martini bar, I’m staying.’’
No martini bar - after all, most residents are underage.
You know, WHY are they making DRINKING seem like a JOKE when SO MANY KIDS GETTING PLOWED is such a serious issue?
Can't really take the paper seriously about anything, huh?
But in addition to the panorama of the city skyline, students have access to a media lounge with a plasma TV for watching movies and playing video games.
Well, I'm glad they can take in a good movie.
Other amenities include....
plush adjustable furniture befitting a first-class airport lounge....
Some critics - jealous, perhaps - may question why BU bothered to erect such posh quarters to house a bunch of college students, and whether the new dorm represents another sign of coddling the young....
Well, there is a SUBJECTIVE ELITIST INSULT if I've ever seen one.
With SO MANY HURTING the "reporter" just flippantly tosses that opinion out there. I've come to expect nothing but from the Glob.
Students looking for high-end quarters must enter the housing lottery and hope they draw a number low enough to qualify for the new dorm.
Oh, PRACTICING for the UPCOMING DRAFT, 'eh, kids?
Samantha Barbosa, the 25th senior in last spring’s housing lottery, chose to shell out nearly $13,000 a semester for a 25th-floor apartment in the gleaming tower, nearly $5,000 more than she would have paid for a standard dorm room.
I'd rather live in the dungeon of a dorm at that rate.
“I applied by myself because my friends were all too cheap to live here,’’ said Barbosa, who is paying for the room with student loans. “For the past three years, I lived in the lowest-priced dorms. Being a senior, I’ve worked really hard and I figured I deserve to live in a place like this.’’
Let's push the elitism, huh? CONDITION the KIDS to it!
Some parents lament the day their children must move beyond the tangerine and mocha walls of the new dorm into the real world.
:-)
Come on in, the s*** stream is fine, kiddo!!
“I’m so happy to be leaving you in this place,’’ Mimi Leahey-Nangle told her son as she gazed out at the Charles River while helping him unpack. “But after living like this, you graduate facing a terrible job market and having to live with rats in Brooklyn.’’
I'd rather live in the tower then.
I'll bet NONE of THESE HOMES have RATS!
Btw, YOUR TUITION PAID for the LUXURIES!
See: Back-to-School Series: Hi Mom, Send Money!
"Strapped colleges keep leaders in luxury" by Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | August 12, 2009
.... Their counterparts at other private colleges reside in luxury as well, many on centuries-old estates surrounded by well-tended gardens and lawns cared for by loyal staffs. The homes, many provided by universities as part of their presidents’ compensation, are the ultimate perk in this college-rich region....
Is that what you WANT the TUITION paying for?
Also see: Pigs at the State Trough
Now the opulence risks standing out amid frozen faculty salaries, widespread layoffs, and slashed programs. While the houses often serve an important ceremonial role and it is questionable how much money could be saved by their elimination, the very mention of them has elicited low-level grumbling on campuses and anxiety among university officials over the Globe’s request to tour them.
“It seems terribly unfair that people who are being laid off can’t even afford to make their modest mortgage payments, while people at the top are living in luxury,’’ said Desiree Goodwin, a Harvard library assistant who has seen dozens of workers lose their jobs across campus. “They’re not really being open about the kind of lifestyle they’re trying to maintain while making these cuts.’’
Related: Harvard's Untouchables
Goodwin acknowledges she’s never had the occasion to set foot in Elmwood, the 1767 home of Harvard president Drew Faust. The pale yellow 12-room Colonial and its carriage house sit behind a white fence on Cambridge’s Tory Row, where wealthy families loyal to the crown lived before the revolution.
Is $775,000 a year PLUS perks a bit much, or...?
The interiors of these homes remain a mystery even to many on their respective campuses. And when a reporter requested entry into eight of the residences, many of which do not pay property taxes to their municipalities, the doors to all but one remained resolutely closed.
But we need reporters instead of bloggers to hold their feet to the... awwww, forget it!
Some schools’ public relations teams expressed concern that it wouldn’t look good to show off their presidents’ luxury quarters amid penny-pinching times.
Yup, it is ALWAYS IMAGE over SUBSTANCE here in AmeriKa.
No wonder the country is in such a mess.
Those thoughts also crossed the mind of Wellesley president Kim Bottomly, but she ultimately concluded, “We have nothing to hide.’’
Last week, she opened her estate to a reporter and a photographer, even allowing a glimpse at her bedroom, which overlooks Lake Waban.
“I’m living here as a custodian of history,’’ Bottomly said of the 1854 home where Wellesley’s founders resided....
Her colleagues were not as open. MIT and Harvard reported that their presidents simply were “not around.’’ The presidents of Tufts and Boston universities should be afforded a measure of privacy, said their spokespersons.
Details about their accommodations, scattered among the posh neighborhoods of Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, and Boston, could only be gleaned from public records, historical documents, university publications, interviews with those who have had the privilege of entering, and from sizing them up from the street....
Something any blogger could do if they wanted to waste the time.
I'd rather expose war lies and lootings.
After all, college officials say, presidents need a place to host visiting dignitaries, entertain wealthy donors, and welcome students and neighbors.
As for that last one, it's usually done under a hot and smelly tent.
In her home’s industrial-sized kitchen, Bottomly introduced her house manager, who oversees cleaning, maintenance, and event preparation, and her chef, who has cooked for Wellesley presidents for 31 years.
The house is grand, for sure, but also homey, including a stuffed platypus and bunny on her Shaker-style bed. French doors open onto a terrace with views of a rose garden and the lake where Bottomly and her husband kayak. A public walking trail runs through the backyard.
“It’s really like having a summer home,’’ Bottomly said of the gray clapboard house atop a hill.
Can you even keep your over-mortgaged shit shack?
Bottomly throws university events on the average of twice a week during the school year. She also invites 10 professors for informal weekly discussions around the fireplace. At one end of the living room is a grand piano that students play during parties....
That could ALL BE DONE at or in a CAMPUS BUILDING!
Robert Atwell, president emeritus of the council and author of a book on presidential compensation, said college presidents may be reluctant to showcase their homes during a recession because “there’s an image issue here: presidents living in splendor.’’
While TUITION INCREASES and we all eat s*** out here!!!!!
At some private colleges, the longstanding tradition of free housing also extends to senior administrators, including provosts, deans, and even former presidents.
Translation: Even ejerkashen is a RIP-OFF RAQIT!
College officials were reluctant to divulge how much it costs each year to house their leaders, and said that any savings, other than an outright sale, would be minimal, given the need to maintain and staff a space for entertaining luminaries. In some cases, the home was donated, making a sale impolitic. Some have suggested, however, that presidents could take a pay cut to reflect the free housing they’re receiving....
WHO SAID THAT?
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Not all teachers are so lucky when they get home:
"Amid budget pain, some states furlough teachers; Once exempt, today they feel squeezed" by Dorie Turner, Associated Press | September 2, 2009
ATLANTA - .... It is a similar story across the country. Teachers, once among the groups exempted from furlough days, are being forced to take unpaid days off amid massive state budget cuts....
Huh. No kidding.
Need $$$, Bay-Staters?
Governor Guts State Services
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
Massachusetts Residents Taken For a Ride
Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
UBS Picks Up Pike
How many times I gotta put 'em up?
In years past, states have largely exempted teachers when it comes to layoffs, furloughs, and other pay cuts, but the recession has gotten so bad that states can no longer ignore such a large sector of the taxpayer-funded workforce....
Not only is that INSULTING (seeing where the tax dough goes), but the RECESSION has gotten SO BAD?
The PAPERS have been telling me IT'S OVER, waaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
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Looks like the cafe is opening.
Think I'll eat lunch at the college today.
Related: Do Not Eat at the Boston Globe
