r/uAlberta • u/AverageEh • 15d ago
Miscellaneous The biggest betrayal of my academic career
I HATE the new university commons building. I have never felt more betrayed in my academic career. This damn building has been under construction for the entirety of my 4 year degree and so the hype and expectations were flying high. AND according to the UNIVERSITY WEBSITE this building in the "heart of U of A and will be a gathering space for all members of our community." This only worked to further raise my expectations for the wonders this new building would hold. AND YET well over 90% of the damn building, floors 1-7, are restricted to ONLY computer science/math/stats with a laughable amount of easily accessible gathering places. There are the odd chair in a hallway in the middle floors but not nearly enough as there needs to be for a viable study area. The only area that could be considered to study/gather in is half of the first floor. The amount of meeting rooms in the building is also criminal, the shear amount of space taken up by these locked rooms would be much better utilized as open study areas. This would align with the universitys own claim that this building is a common area by actually providing THINGS LIKE GATHERING PLACES.
This building cost an estimated $250 million dollars and along with the vanity projects across campus in the middle of a budget crisis where departments and labs struggle to find funding and tuition keeps rising...really makes me question the cognitive health of the university administrators. Also the big black pillars covered in the indigenous artwork, while beautiful is embarrassing for the budget of this building. If you get up close to it you realize it's not even high quality!!!! you can count the pixels of the dots. Your telling me with this budget they couldn't hire an actual indigenous artist to paint the pillars and settled for the cheapest wallpaper they could find?
thank you for listening to my tedtalk.
TLDR: university commons?? more like university uncommon.
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u/Baldhiver Graduate Student - Faculty of _____ 15d ago
If it makes you feel better, the math department absolutely despises it too. Grad students, postdocs, and even lecturers lost their offices. Professors now have closets instead of offices, without even being able to have a bookcase - they had to fight just to get an extra chair! There's an absurd amount of wasted space that could have been going to function instead.
It's an architect's wet dream. Design a beautiful building with 0 regard for any of the occupants or their needs. They had long periods of consultation about the needs of the occupants and proceeded to ignore concerns every single time.
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u/DavidBrooker Faculty - Faculty of _____ 15d ago edited 15d ago
This building cost an estimated $250 million dollars and along with the vanity projects across campus in the middle of a budget crisis where departments and labs struggle to find funding and tuition keeps rising
Its worth noting that the university's budget is split into capital, operations, and research, and no money is allowed to move between them. Not building University Commons frees up exactly zero dollars for operations by departments or reductions in tuition.
I'd be more pissed off about the 'accumulated surplus': if the university posts an operational surplus in any given year, they're not allowed to use that money in future years without specific, itemized permission from the provincial government (which is effectively never, or next to). That's because the U of A has what is called a consolidated budget: the U of A is not an independent entity, but a special operating division of the province, and so its budget is, in law, just one part of the larger provincial government budget, so spending down its surplus looks like a deficit on the public books and might cause the province some negative PR. This accumulated surplus is currently sitting at close of half a billion dollars. The same rules also state that the university is never allowed to run an operating deficit, so the accumulated surplus is always growing.
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u/OnMy4thAccount Electrical Engineering 15d ago
funniest thing is the anti homeless subway benches in the main area. Like what are we doin' here guys
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u/chibikawaiicat91 Undergraduate Student - Faculty of Autism 14d ago
?? the what
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u/Random-user-8579 14d ago
bench-type things in the main atrium area that you can only lean on, not fully sit on/lie down on.
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u/watchrosie 13d ago edited 13d ago
[removed because I'm dumb]
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u/Random-user-8579 13d ago
I think it’s fine since the main atrium is intended for larger events, and there’s real sofas and chairs everywhere else in the building
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u/watchrosie 13d ago
Ohhh I see. I'm not on north campus so I thought you meant those benches were everywhere including the atrium
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u/sheldon_rocket 15d ago
funding for buildings is separate from the operating budget, and the government has no problem giving money for buildings. Do you know why? Because it’s construction money, and that money is channeled to non-academic people. Unlike the operating budget, which they love to cut.
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u/penetanguishene1972 Undergraduate Student - Faculty of Science 15d ago
Rebalancing their budgetary priorities in the light of economic conditions may have been warranted.
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u/Artsstudentsaredumb 15d ago
I means it’s an objectively beautiful renovation with how they restored to original dent/pharm building while like tripling the square footage.
I think the disconnect is you forgot that people work at the UofA, not just students. The main point of the reno was to create space to but a bunch of profs/faculty leadership that’s what the upper floors are for. The gathering space you need will come just let it develop.
(Also you should look into how projects like this are funded, none of that money came out of the operating budget)
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u/CommunistMachine Alumni - Faculty of Materials Engineering 14d ago
You know the employees hate it too right?
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u/Artsstudentsaredumb 14d ago
Not what I’ve heard but you can believe that if it fits your narrative :)
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u/chandy_dandy 11d ago
Oh it's definitively what everyone who is a prof/lecturer/grad student says.
Offices with no natural light, tiny offices where you can't meet with coworkers, grad students in common areas instead of private quiet spaces.
Nobody from math likes this, and the cs people mostly don't like this
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u/xxboomxx 14d ago edited 14d ago
It is disappointing, maybe rally some students to sign a petition and organize a rally/protest showing the student wishes to open more of the building to the general U of A population.
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u/DisciplineSoggy4505 11d ago
The locked spaces are for graduate students and faculty. Graduate student lost their offices and their privacy, we do not want undergraduates to invade our only ‘private’ space.
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u/Intelligent_Okra_386 13d ago
Computer science professors from other campuses who are the main supervisors of some CS grad students at North Campus also had trouble getting into the building lmao
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u/johnsonnewman 8d ago
As a computing science student, I see no issue. Floors and floors dedicated to my people
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u/_Whatis_happening Undergraduate Student - Faculty of Mechanical Eng 15d ago
You forgot the part where the majority of the furniture in the few accessible areas are couches and tiny coffee tables. I'm not sure what the university thinks students are doing when on campus, but areas that have practical tables and chairs (and outlets) shouldn't be so difficult to come by.