Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Just Plain Mater


When I graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor's of Science in 1971, my parents wanted to give me a Lifetime Membership in the Alumni Society as a graduation present. They were too cheap to pay the whole $100, but they chipped in $50 and I paid the rest. I'm an official card-carrying U Dub Alumnus! I get mail from the Alumni Society all the time! I get a glossy magazine! They want me to give the University more money, to make it a greater University than it already is!

Let me explain why I won't.

First, there was this little dispute that arose in the 80s when I was painfully homeless. Getting over the worst of an onset of PTSD, I tried to get back into my math career by using the Math Research Library at Padelford Hall. No, not to sleep there. I went in just to look for books and check them out. Then, I returned them on time! Those days I still respected libraries, and returned books. I'm wiser now.

The librarian didn't respect me. She said, "The books are for people who need them." I said I needed them. The librarian indicated my need didn't count. I flashed the Lifetime Membership card. My need still didn't count. I asked one of my former professors to intervene on my behalf, a guy who had given me a glowing recommendation that helped me get into a graduate school. He denied ever having known me before even one cock crowed. He probably thought, "Did I have any homeless in my classes? Let's see, I had an Armenian. I had a Nigerian. I had a Hoosier. But no, no homeless."

OK. That sort of thing can leave a bad taste. But I'm an easy-going, forgiving, SOB. Yes I am. I have been willing to forgive and forget that slight. I don't know, maybe that librarian was acting out of line. Maybe I didn't complain to the right person, the one who would have set her straight.

Recently the University pressured Gregoire to go along with booting rehabilitating sex offenders out of the fraternity neighborhood, ostensibly to protect students from possibly in the future feeling uncomfortable about them being there. Turns out the University really wants to expand into the property the sex offenders were housed in.

The University should now be barred from doing so for a generation, until the stench of its corruption has had time to dissipate. But if that were the worst of the University's crimes I'd be saving every penny I found in the gutters and every dime I find under every vending machine for my beloved college.

There is one unforgivable injustice.

In 1967 I paid $345 per year for state-resident tuition. Since then, average tuitions for residents have gone to around $6,500 per year. In 40 years we've had six-fold inflation overall, but over 18-fold inflation of UW tuition!

At the same time there has been only a little more than a nominal 4-fold increase in workers' pay, two-thirds the inflation increase. Consequently the economic burden on low-income working residents is 4 and a half times what it was when I was a student.

Poor people are being gouged on a steady ongoing basis. They may get loans, but they are having to spend lifetimes paying them back. It's the new slavery. An indentured servitude of decades instead of the traditional seven years. And what do the Board of Regents and the President talk to Gregoire about? Getting sex offenders out of a building they want.

I'll give them the same deal my parents gave me. If the University's governors make a good faith effort to get the state to bring tuitions down to around $2000 a year, I'll think that they really do care about their mission after all, and I'll make an effort to scrounge up $50 for them.

Until then, the University of Washington will get from me what I got from them when I was homeless.

4 comments:

C. Al Currier said...

Ha! Ha! They don't remember you at UW when your homeless!
The're just friends when your monies good.
Sort of reminds me of some insurance agents at State Farm who loved me for years while I was paying and paying and paying. They told me how good a driver I was with an accident free record. They always took my money. I had EXTRA insurance for towing, just in case, but I always fixed my own problems, just out of sheer pride. That is, until 1994 in Las Vegas. My pick-up wouldn't start-up. I had a broken hand and other problems. I got towed. Yes towed. Me, needing a tow truck. Seventy some bucks. I wasn't loved by State Farm anymore. They had problems. They had excuses. They needed more doc's.
etc.,etc.,etc. and months and etc.
A couple years later I went back to Boise ID and walked over to the State Farm insurance agent that used to love me. He didn'nt remember me. He asked me where I was living. I told him Boise Rescue Mission, and I'm still waiting for the money you guys owe me.

I'm still waiting--Seattle

If State Farm can't pay me for towing, how about a Christmas Card from time to time?

R-67? Hmmmm.......

richb said...

Dr. WEs,

With respect to your 10/17 column, I regret to hear of your issue with checking out books at UW libraries as a paid alumni assoc. member. My experience has been the exact opposite of yours. As a paid-up UW alumni assoc. member you can get library privileges, including book check out, by obtaining a library card at the Suzzalo cashier's desk. Just show them your alumni card.

My experince with the UW library staff is they tend to be welcoming to all, including those who may be homeless, provided they are not a disturbance to other patrons.

The UW libraries should be a resource to the entire community, particularly since it is a public university.

Rich Berkowitz
Cornell U., ILR '82
U. of Washington, MBA '89

Dr. Wes Browning said...

I had a library card which I obtained from Suzallo, just as you said. I was by the way at that time not only an alumnus but a former part-time UW instructor! I had library privileges throughout the 80s that were honored at all the other branches. But to keep current in math I needed books from the one and only branch where my homelessness was made an issue.

The fact that at the same time the other branches didn't have a problem with me adds to my belief that it was just that one librarian who had a stick up her butt, but thinking that doesn't make it feel any better, especially when my former teachers also wouldn't help me.

The point is this came down when I was unable to summon the strength for an all out fight because I was homeless. I was kicked while down.

C. Al Currier said...

Hmmmm....R-67 passed
Maybe we could come up with some proposition or referendum to get UW to remember their grads or else (get sued back into the stone-age).