UWT and Market Street

Peter Callaghan has some thoughts on the UWT master planning. Also more at Exit133 about the community's involvement in the process.

Previously the plan has called for closing Market Street. A lot of community members are against it because it is a major arterial. And, as Callaghan points out, UWT doesn't want the conversation to be solely about whether or not to close Market.

Callaghan writes:

[UWT] wants the community to begin imagining a university that will continue evolving from its birth as an option for place-bound students.

That might mean dormitories and apartments. It might mean dining halls and recreational facilities. It might mean applied research labs and places for the transfer of technology and innovation to private businesses. It might mean increased cultural opportunities for students, faculty and the community. It might mean more open space and more gathering space. It might mean parking garages and more transit opportunities.

Sign me up for all that in a heartbeat!

As to the question of closing Market, I'm not sure it's an all bad option. It would certainly disrupt traffic flow. I wonder if Fawcett could be widened and improved to be an alternate arterial if Market were closed ... although if you're going that far up the hill, then you may as well just count Tacoma Ave as the replacement arterial.

Closing the street might not be all bad ... but I just don't see a compelling rationale for closing the street.

Federal Way Tech Academy

I saw in yesterday's Tribune that the Federal Way School District is starting a high tech middle-school project called the Technology Access Foundation Academy at the Totem Middle School.

So this might be a good time for me to once again plug my idea for a tech high school centered at the Foss Waterway Seaport and Urban Waters. The School of Maritime Science ... I'm telling you we could rock the house with it.

The Shed gets replaced

Good news for completing the Pacific Ave block. The UWT shed is going to come down and a whole new campus center will be put together. Cool news!

UWT Class of 2010

I'm glad to see freshmen at UWT. Having a 4-year school in downtown Tacoma can only mean good things for the long run. I have been an advocate for a long time of basing downtown success on 4 pillars: business, housing, tourism, and education. By working to increase all four in downtown Tacoma, the reasons for coming downtown are diversified, and therefore downtown as a whole is vulnerable if one of the pillars should fall on some hard years.

I was honored last summer to be part of UWT's Curriculum Development Committee that helped put together recommendations for how to structure the first few years of under-class education at UWT. It was a great time and I learned a lot about the inner-workings of the school.

So here's hoping it all works out for the Class of 2010! And welcome to downtown. It'll be your home for the next 4 years.

More on college admissions

I continue to post on the college experience and the college admissions process because going to college is becoming more and more common (now 27% of Americans have a Bachelors degree or higher). It is also is the easiest way to estimate how much money someone will earn later in life.

I had a Poli. Sci. professor in college who made this disturbing statement: when you buy a college degree, you are buying friends for life. First, the idea of buying a degree is difficult, although--as my parents will attest, I'm sure--quite accurate. And then there is the second implication, that it puts you into the social group for contacts, networking, and everything else ...

Anyway, colleges are aware of this. Carleton, my alma mater, is trying to fight the system by offering almost zero merit based financial aid and focusing everything on need based. And Harvard has just announced that they will drop "Early Admission" because it favors privileged students. Here's the quote:

“We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged,’’ Derek Bok, the interim president of Harvard, said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvard’s students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.

Hats off to Harvard!

The College Term Paper for $9.95/page

I was facinated by this NYT feature on a new service for college students: outsourced papers.

The writer for the Times requested 3 papers: "1984" contrasted with "Brave New World;" Ophelia's madness, and the theme of colonialism in "Lord Jim."

The service asked for a 24-hour extension on their paper on "Lord Jim," which is just so familiar ... where have I heard that before?

And they produced a few great gems:

... Although many similarities exist between Aldous Huxley’s ‘A Brave New World’ and George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ the works books [sic] though they deal with similar topics, are more dissimilar than alike.

... Thus, in critical review of the play, Ophelia mentally suffers from the scars of unwanted love and exploitation rather than any singular or isolated cause.

... Many people consider this Huxley’s most important work: many others think it is his only work. This novel has been praised and condemned, vilified and glorified, a source of controversy, a subject for sermons, and required reading for many high school students and college undergraduates. This novel has had twenty-seven printings in the United States alone and will probably have twenty-seven more.

That's some good writing! Can you say, Trying to make your word count? At $9.95/page, you could probably do better spending that money to feed 1,000 monkeys for awhile and see what they pump out.