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April 23, 1998
HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATION AND RESIDENTS
HAGAR COURT AND CARDIFF TERRACE
Dear Colleagues.
After meeting with the President of the Homeowners' Association and individuals representing Hagar Court yesterday, Executive Vice Chancellor Michael Tanner and Vice Chancellor Francisco Hernandez have recommended to me that the proposal to move undergraduates into faculty housing be dropped entirely. Based on this and my own conversations with many of you, I concur with this recommendation for a number of reasons. First, there was a lack of communication and consultation with affected residents, leading to serious misunderstandings about what was being considered. At no time was there any contemplation of "evicting" current residents otherwise eligible to remain in Hagar Court. Whatever the source of this misinterpretation, I apologize for this having been what was heard. Second, many residents have expressed cogently their strong bond to the present community and their sense of the disruption to the special relationships and extended families of the area that might occur if a large number of undergraduates were living in the Hagar apartments. Third, we have just been informed that the First Congregational Church has voted to reject our proposal to purchase their property adjacent to Hagar Court, making the need for additional housing for faculty and visitors all the more critical.
I thus have instructed EVC Tanner and Vice Chancellor Hernandez not to pursue this particular proposal further. At the same time, I am asking Vice Chancellor Hernandez and his admissions office to be prepared to reduce expected enrollment, if possible and necessary because of the housing shortage, despite the potential losses of flexibility for the campus that this could entail.
Unmistakably, there has been a serious set of misunderstandings and miscommunications regarding the development of options to house students for the 1998-99 academic year. Let me apologize again for this, and for the perceived lack of sensibility for genuine faculty concerns. I would like to comment briefly on some key campus issues and provide some background for this regrettable situation.
As I and members of the administrative team have been discussing with you since Fall, the 1998-99 academic year will be a particularly significant year in terms of the immediate and long-term health of the campus and its growth. We find ourselves in the very encouraging position that we might be fully paid for our enrollment. There is strong political consensus and a well coordinated university effort to persuade both the Governor and the Legislature to pay the university for our full enrollment. At the same time, most of the other campuses have much more flexibility than we do with regard to their housing and commuting environments. An additional 100 students adds over $1M to the annual campus budget including financial aid, giving additional options for faculty hires and beneficial expansion of programs.
It was with this in mind that our Housing staff were asked to evaluate all possibilities for housing students -- from San Jose to Monterey. During this ongoing process, they identified an option to master lease thirty apartments in the new Westmont Place development at the foot of the campus. They sketched out a proposal to provide new faculty housing and possibly to use available apartments in Hagar Court for housing upper-division undergraduates. Although we have not signed a final agreement with Westmont Place, we are under pressure to make a commitment, hence the undue haste to determine the feasibility of a concept intended to increase housing for both faculty and students. We will be pursuing a master lease with Westmont Place only if it is economically viable and without disturbing Hagar Court arrangements in place.
I hope we have your continued support as we go forward with the very ambitious plans laid out by campus planning processes and the creative thinking and exchanges that have taken place with the help of the Millennium Committee.
I sincerely hope that this unfortunate lapse of what I had perceived to be a much improved campus communication can be repaired, and that we can move on together to secure an enhanced environment on our campus. I do believe that the answers to the challenges and opportunities posed by UC Santa Cruz's projected enrollment growth can and should be developed through cooperative dialogue.
Sincerely,
M.R.C. Greenwood
Chancellor