[ Golden Gater Online - September 11, 1997 ]
Whether it be housing, parking, the courses offered or simple food service, the university is doing a shoddy job of providing for its crowded student population.
The university sells itself well, promoting the beauty of the Bay Area and the advantage of a degree earned at a diverse, multi-cultural campus. But while students are warned about campus crime through "Student's Right to Know" disclosures, they aren't told how difficult it is to find a place to live. And that's a crime.
Students also aren't informed that there are painfully few dormitory rooms available. And most are not aware that Verducci Hall, a campus dorm with more than 700 beds, has been closed for nearly eight years, since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake left it damaged.
Many students are crashing on friends' couches or in their cars, a practice hardly conducive to good study habits. If student performance suffers, so does the reputation of this campus. And no amount of advertising, even if it's endorsed with Mayor Willie Brown's cheshire-cat grin, will be able to change that.
Students are being forced further out into the Bay Area to find housing, usually either down the peninsula or over to the East Bay, making SF State a commuter school. But when they arrive here, there's no place to park.
By mid-morning, the lots are nearly filled to capacity. Yet the administration compounds rather than corrects the problem by building a new Central Plant and Recycling Center on an old parking lot. Students must endlessly circle the residential streets of Parkmerced, which has only two- and four-hour parking spaces, and is ticketed aggressively by city meter maids. With some classes lasting three hours, two-hour parking is often not an option.
For upper-division students, finding classes necessary for graduation is akin to snagging that last four-hour spot near Lake Merced Drive. Many of the core-requirement courses in various majors are overloaded by students scrambling to enroll. Instructors lose valuable class time dealing with the sheer volume of people trying to get into their classes.
Some students must delay their graduation because classes they need to fulfill requirements, such as those in the Segment III clusters, are offered sporadically. When they are offered, they're often so impacted it's nearly impossible to get in. A school that is unable to provide the necessary means for graduating students who have the skill and desire to do so is a school failing in its primary duty.
SF State also has a problem feeding people. It is easier to get into a trendy Folsom Street nightclub on Saturday night than it is to get something to eat at lunchtime. Lines spill out into aisles, congesting the flow of foot traffic.
It has been a few years since SF State switched to its Touch-Tone registration system, fixing (for the most part) one of the most glaring examples of the university's inability to handle crowds. But there's no such thing as dial-up housing, and you can't access a burrito over the telephone.
[ Golden Gater - September 11, 1997 ]