Last Wednesday Associate Dean for Residence Life Joe Gonzalez made a surprise announcement: At the end of this academic year, students will no longer be able to subscribe to cable in their dorm rooms.
Gonzalez cited the combination of rising maintenance costs for the campus’ cable infrastructure and increasingly sluggish student demand as justifications for the change. High infrastructure costs cannot be justified by declining demand.
This change is a justifiable spending cut in a still uncertain financial climate. But cutting cable access will further residential inequities on Central Campus—an unacceptable result from a decision made behind closed doors and without noticeable student input.
This decision disproportionately affects students on Central Campus. One of the decided advantages to apartment-style housing is an increased sense of autonomy—something that the ability to watch cable in your residence plays no small part in creating.
And, because Central has few common spaces available to independents, the change means a complete blackout of many live television options for independents on Central.
On the eve of the new house model’s implementation, the administration has eliminated a substantial amenity on Central. Unless it is resolved, this change could easily play into the long-standing bias against living on Central Campus—an issue the University has fought to counteract with recent construction projects and with the house model’s “fit principle.”
The administration can avoid backward momentum on this project by establishing access to satellite TV or cable through private companies on Central. These solutions, along with other innovative methods like subsidized Netflix subscriptions, should be vigorously pursued to mitigate residential inequity.
While we look forward to novel solutions for cable access on Central Campus, we are concerned with the decision-making process that preceded this announcement.
Simply put, there is a big gap between citing statistics on campus cable use and eliminating cable access altogether. The administration made limited use of student input in judging the potential impact this policy will have on student life. This sets a dangerous precedent for the removal of student services without clear communication and proper cooperation with the student body.
This decision was made public significantly late in the Spring semester—well after the housing lottery was held and selections had been finalized. The effects of this announcement may have been significant enough to influence student housing decisions. By making this announcement at the 11th hour, the administration has prevented students from making fully informed choices.
Finally, the lack of clear communication makes the financial justifications behind this decision seem veiled and unsubstantiated. The basis of this very sudden cut was the vague figure “in the neighborhood of $1 million” Gonzalez claimed was necessary for systemic cable infrastructure upgrades. This hardly counts as sufficient justification for the student who won’t have cable next year.
As the University’s financial situation continues to improve, it is important to look for cheaper, more feasible alternatives to providing multimedia access for students. While we understand the necessity of cable cuts, the creation of more residential inequities through opaque decision-making processes is unacceptable.
Future cuts to student services must be more transparent and timely.
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