  Detroitman Member Username: Detroitman Post Number: 992 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 208.9.112.192 |
WSU GAMBLES ON DORMS: On-campus vision could boost Detroit August 29, 2006 BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20060829/NEW S06/608290325/1008/NEWS | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 646 Registered: 07-2004 Posted From: 209.69.221.253 |
Why does it have to say "gambles"? Why couldn't it just say WSU "commits to" or "stakes future on"? WSU wouldn't do it if it wasn't pretty much a sure thing. | ||
Dabirch Member Username: Dabirch Post Number: 1810 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 208.44.117.10 |
This is my favorite line:
How somebody who was raised by a parent that stupid could even get into college is beyond me. That girl is beating the odds. | ||
Jt1 Member Username: Jt1 Post Number: 7806 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 198.208.159.19 |
And that is different from other University dorms in what way? | ||
Upinottawa Member Username: Upinottawa Post Number: 480 Registered: 09-2005 Posted From: 198.103.184.76 |
The Residence Halls where I have lived did not have key-card entrances (the doors were open from 8am to 7pm on weekdays and outside such times a key was required -- the same key that had been used for 30 years), did not have 24 hour security (they had "staff" rather than security guards), or limits on after-hour guests except during homecoming. So not all university dorms are as secure at those at WSU. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 4920 Registered: 02-2004 Posted From: 141.217.174.229 |
I have see some hip cool skinny "ME" generation kids getting ready to ship their furniture into those dorms. Most of the grown up college kids will fee freedom from their parents from the first time. And many parents will feel their freedom from their sons and daughters for the first time, cheering YAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!! And go on vacation. | ||
Tndetroiter Member Username: Tndetroiter Post Number: 188 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 141.217.226.162 |
I live in the building last mentioned in the article (on the very top floor), and it's very nice. I have a wonderful view of the Fisher Building and all of Midtown. All the undergrads are moving in today and I'd be willing to bet that occupation will be much higher than 75%. In terms of saftey, I'd feel just as safe if the measures weren't as drastic. It's kind of a pain to pull your card out of your wallet so many times just to get into your suite. Housing is something the university needs, especially if it wants to attract students from outside the Metro area. I think the University is taking steps in the right direction | ||
Chitaku Member Username: Chitaku Post Number: 682 Registered: 03-2006 Posted From: 69.136.147.97 |
MY girl lived in the dorms all of last year and let me tell you! those things are on lockdown!!! I came over twice a day and each time I would have to give them my ID which they would swipe and create a photo name tag which i must wear at all times, and must be accompanied by my girlfriend at all times. I would never want to live there as it is somewhat of a police state for the kids. my GF hated it | ||
Wmuchris Member Username: Wmuchris Post Number: 380 Registered: 06-2005 Posted From: 141.217.44.37 |
TND, Are you an incoming law student? If so what section? | ||
Tndetroiter Member Username: Tndetroiter Post Number: 190 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 141.217.226.162 |
Yeah, section 2. | ||
Wmuchris Member Username: Wmuchris Post Number: 381 Registered: 06-2005 Posted From: 141.217.44.37 |
I'm combined. I might know you. email ba3812@wayne | ||
Tndetroiter Member Username: Tndetroiter Post Number: 191 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 141.217.226.68 |
Combined? Do you mean evening student? | ||
Kgrimmwsu Member Username: Kgrimmwsu Post Number: 88 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 69.51.154.37 |
lived in south hall my soph. year and it was very nice and clean, but I decided that Western Michigan was a better place for me to be. | ||
Wmuchris Member Username: Wmuchris Post Number: 384 Registered: 06-2005 Posted From: 141.217.44.37 |
No both day and evening. I'm on campus 12 hours a day.  | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 167 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 66.184.3.44 |
quote: Safety is also an issue for Kassem. She said her mother wouldn't want her to live on Wayne State's campus. "She'd definitely worry," Kassem said. "She won't even let me take night classes." ______________________________ ___________________ Common perception from the suburbanites. One of my female friends lived for 3 years in the University Towers, and it was as safe as anything in Ann Arbor. Great news for Detroit. Every new development that brings more resident's to the city is always welcome. | ||
Tndetroiter Member Username: Tndetroiter Post Number: 194 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 141.217.226.162 |
Oh, fuck that shit, I'd go insane. | ||
Thecarl Member Username: Thecarl Post Number: 949 Registered: 04-2005 Posted From: 69.14.30.175 |
dabirch (et. al.), it's more than pure paranoia and stereotyping that cause concern about the safety of wayne state students. hey, there are some street-smart folks among us that think such precautions are ridiculous. the problem is, maybe not everyone who is accepted into wayne state is as composed, socially aware, and geographically astute as the next. being worried, confused, or disoriented could present a problem for someone who studied real hard to get a scholarship and gained acceptance to wayne state to further their education. i'd love to challenge the crime stats regarding a five-block radius of wayne state, and a five-mile radius of university of michigan. | ||
Warriorfan Member Username: Warriorfan Post Number: 493 Registered: 08-2005 Posted From: 70.160.37.222 |
Tuition hikes at WSU are absolutely out-of-control. They are pricing people out of a college education, many students at Wayne come from Detroit and can't afford ~$10,000 a year for tuition, especailly when they are financing their own education by working. New residence halls are great, but not when EVERY student has to pay for them through a tuition hike, so that a few can live in them. A ~24% hike in tuition costs in just TWO YEARS is disgusting. | ||
Tndetroiter Member Username: Tndetroiter Post Number: 198 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 141.217.226.162 |
$10,000/ year is pretty cheap, especially considering many students at Wayne live for free w/ realatives. | ||
Thecarl Member Username: Thecarl Post Number: 950 Registered: 04-2005 Posted From: 69.14.30.175 |
guess what, warriorfan? after detroit smoked its credit line last year, jenny gave more money to bail out the "d" (corrupt democratic vote generator), and cut promised funding to universities at the same time. i once thought that corrupt politicians were raiding what was left of detroit; i now think that michigan itself is being looted. | ||
Bvos Member Username: Bvos Post Number: 1902 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 70.228.57.79 |
I think many students would be willing to pay a little more to have real campus life with dorms, more pedestrian traffic in the area, etc. It really is not fair to try and lump the ~24% tuition hike with the construction of dorms. The vast majority of that tuition hike came from cuts at the state level as well as the usual increases of benefits for faculty and staff. I'm a grad student at Wayne (as well as a Detroit homeowner) and I'll pay a 1% increase in tuition to have a more lively, urban campus that benefits the city. Hopefully more on-campus housing will change the stereotypes that Ms. Kassem and her family have of Detroit. | ||
Fnemecek Member Username: Fnemecek Post Number: 1877 Registered: 12-2004 Posted From: 68.255.242.252 |
Your sources for both, please? | ||
Bvos Member Username: Bvos Post Number: 1903 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 70.228.57.79 |
Also the security measures described in the article are no different than those in any urban campus in America. I went to college in downtown Minneapolis. Our student ID's doubled as magnetic cards that got us into our dorms and other buildings on campus. There were similar restrictions on visitors, etc. | ||
Brandon48202 Member Username: Brandon48202 Post Number: 101 Registered: 12-2004 Posted From: 165.252.70.2 |
When measuring the economic impact of the new student housing there are 2 questions that need to be answered: 1) Is on campus housing taking residents away tenants from off campus rental housing inthe area? 2) Are the dorms acting as a sort of a "gateway" for people to enter into Detroit and possibly end up renting/buying homes in the area? We need more people living in Detroit and if the new dorms can get people to move here then I'm all for it. | ||
Gary Member Username: Gary Post Number: 185 Registered: 02-2004 Posted From: 69.221.75.252 |
When I graduated from high school in the early 70s, I was accepted at Wayne Satae, but I decided to go elsewhere because I wanted to get away from home and have a "real" campus experience. Ironically, 2 years later, I transferred to Wayne for the exact same reasons I chose not to go there in the first place. I was able to live at home, maintain a part-time job and still have a "real" campus experience. Who knew? | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 270 Registered: 06-2006 Posted From: 68.62.6.138 |
Wmuchris: Are you a new student? I'm a 1L in the evening section, so you might know me too | ||
Wmuchris Member Username: Wmuchris Post Number: 386 Registered: 06-2005 Posted From: 69.246.19.24 |
Yes sir I am, Check out the thread in the discussions thread so that we can have our own space. Can't wait to find out who you are! | ||
Jasoncw Member Username: Jasoncw Post Number: 213 Registered: 07-2005 Posted From: 67.149.141.170 |
Brandon, I definitly think it's #2. Renting, finding roomates, landlords, and that kind of stuff can be too much for a lot of freshmen and is avoided. Midtown's reputation doesn't help either. Dorms are prefered by everyone (even if they don't think so), at least for their first year, and after that, I think #2 will happen for a lot of people. | ||
Arcas Member Username: Arcas Post Number: 12 Registered: 01-2006 Posted From: 69.246.31.213 |
Thanks for posting the link. I too lived in the same building as Tndetroiter, but I lived there from last August until I moved out a couple weeks ago. I wasn't on the 11th floor with the lucky law students, but I still had nice views from the 9th floor with the engineers/medical students. I found it a mixed bag of positive and negative. The good: great views, security, it was brand new (it had just opened when I first moved in), and the rooms themselves (while they were small, you could still make them pretty cool with a little creativity). The bad: Security, as Chitaku mentioned. Almost like complaining about airport security until something happens. But it was a little over the top. When you have to swap IDs and sign in your parents just to show them your room. Every single stairwell/fire door in the building is locked and alarmed. The most convenient route to class from my room might be just to head to the stairs and trot down to the street... but you couldn't. You're forced to walk all the way down to the elevators, then past the front desk to the one main door on the opposite side of the building from where we need to go. It definately was a bit of a change from the MSU dorms of my undergrad years, something like what Upinottawa described. So security is a mixed bag: even though lots of interesting things happened on the undergrad floors (2-7), pretty much nothing security related ever happened on the upper graduate floors. Overall, much less security-related stuff than in the MSU dorms, for instance. And I consider the building, easily, the single safest place near campus for a WSU student to stay (if ultra-security is a big selling point - it really wasn't for me). But that security comes at the price of being very highly annoying. The stores: Let's say it together now: "First floor retail". The first floor of the building has space for retail and when I moved in last August the official word was "it's coming very soon." Articles in the Freep touted the stores as being ready by Dec 05/Jan 06. By May 06... nothing. Finally, in July, construction crews showed up and tossed up the mini-Barnes and Noble in a period of a week and a half. The other retail spots: The Pizza place, the FedEx Kinko's, the Ice cream place... not a single piece of lumber has been moved in their spots. Who knows when they will ever be built. A bit of bad taste in the mouth when these things were indirectly advertised to students, for last year, and they still aren't there. The cafeteria/customer service: University rules, if you lived in the place, you MUST have a meal plan (and pay the huge fee for the meal plan). Sub-par food, and more than sub-par customer service, hardly made up for the roughly $7/meal you're forced to pay. It's hilarious to me that they scratch their heads wondering why they can't fill the place, then with the next breath demand a massive cost for a meal plan a student might not want, with no option to say "No thanks." The room and board itself really isn't all that bad (when you consider it includes all utilities/internet/etc.). But when you tack on that meal plan, the total price becomes much higher than most students want to pay. Who knows, I might still be there if I could have opted out of the meal plan.  If you ask most people why they weren't renewing their contract for another year, you didn't hear much about the security annoyances or the fire alarms, but you did hear about the cafe and the front-desk customer service over and over. Once they knock out those two huge problems, the place will be a lot better. One line from the article that's funny to me:
Of course they have figures for this year, but they aren't exactly going to tell the Freep. I knew a great number of people who lived in the building last year, undergrad and grad, and I have a strong feeling that the numbers are down in this second year. Last year, freshman were not allowed in the building, they had to stay in Ghafari or South Hall (hopefully they changed this rule, for their own benefit). The 8th floor was completely empty last year, and the plan is for it to be empty again this year. For many of us, once we lived there for awhile, learned more about the neighborhoods, and saw all the housing options on craigslist, or the UCCA website, the dorms became harder and harder to sell to us. I'm a LOT more positive about the dorms than most people are, and I do wish them the best. But it's clear that WSU is still pretty "new" to this on-campus housing thing. It'll be really nice in a few years when they iron out the kinks. | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 271 Registered: 06-2006 Posted From: 24.169.224.43 |
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the occupancy rate is down this year...they've been soliciting those in the law program with big ca$h incentives to move there ever since I was admitted late last year...they've been really pushy and have eased some of the original restriction of living there, such as no alcohol consumption, which makes it sound like it's not a very good seller's market for them (Message edited by thejesus on August 30, 2006) | ||
Arcas Member Username: Arcas Post Number: 13 Registered: 01-2006 Posted From: 69.246.31.213 |
Reminds me of the AOL-CD policy from a few years ago: massively easy to sign-up, but horridly difficult to cancel. I know a few people who are living there right now who signed up for the contract before they knew what they were doing and then couldn't get out of it. Whoops. ;) ---------- Anyway, as to the overall theme of the article, I'm really positive about what WSU is doing trying to grow its on-campus program. Building more dorms, improving services in their dorms, and getting more students in the area is only going to do good things for Midtown. The next logical place to put a dorm would seem to be where the old abandoned university structure on Forest currently stands. Recently, someone posted a link to a site with renderings of potential Riverfront condos. The same site also has a concept called "Wayne State University South University Village". It looks to be an idea for simply using the sprawling parking land around University Tower for parking garages, condos, rental units, and other mixed use development (the Whitney even makes an appearance). If something like this gets off the ground, or the rumors about the hotel-conference-complex on Warren-Woodward, and the engineering expansion, and more dorms, and the new Business school building on Woodward-Palmer, and more development north of campus in TechTown .... then WSU will really be something amazing to see in 10-15 years. Personally, I look forward to the day when WSU has more on-campus/near-campus students than commuters. For those with WSU Facebook access, Andy Maggetti, who was interviewed in the article, is also a student rep responsible for gathering student ideas and opinions for a new WSU Student Center and presenting to the board of governers. ------------------- Maybe because I'm originally from Detroit, or maybe because I've been reading this forum for a couple of years, I kinda got into the default position of "showing" a lot of my fellow on-campus dorm residents how to operate downtown. In an effort to get more students into the midtown/downtown community. Literally dragging them out to the 4th street fair, the Dally, and the neighborhood pubs. Showing them that bums are harmless and that they can walk around at night. Giving my famous "this is how the bus works" lessons for the 24/7 Woodward Bus (get on here, put money here, get off at Merchants Row, walk to any bar/club of choice...) [maybe another topic for the light rail transit discussions, but it's amazing to me how many people are completely intimidated by the harmless city bus] Wayne also has a program for businesses to offer discounts to university students/staff, and it also helps to get people spending money in the community. You can check it out here. My friends and I frequently tend to end up at Detroit Beer Company, for instance. We love the people, and the brew... but we really love getting 15% off. We're very loyal to American Masala and the Dominos on Woodward for the same reason. ;) (A little call-back-humor: We used to get 50% off Mondays and Tuesdays at Agave) If you do own a downtown business, you should definately get on this list (I'm looking your way: Slows, Oslo, Eph McNally's). You really don't even need a serious discount. Some of the places on there have things as small as "small drink free". But they still get themselves on the list for the students to see. For the new Wayne students who have never been to downtown Detroit, you can't beat getting your name right in front of them. | ||
Metrodetguy Member Username: Metrodetguy Post Number: 2925 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 68.248.11.139 |
Frank, I hope you see the irony in wanting sources for (valid) claims against Granholm, when you tried to support erroneous claims on another thread that "DeVos publicly stated being against Detroit". Detroitnerd, you're concerned about use of the word "gambles" in the story about WSU, yet you previously characterized the school as "White Suburban University"? | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 780 Registered: 06-2004 Posted From: 12.108.190.1 |
Go WSU! | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 4934 Registered: 02-2004 Posted From: 141.217.174.229 |
Warriorfan, WSU may raise tuition, but all is fair in the capitalist free market. Colleges have to make money somehow. There NO such thing as a free college or university. | ||
Dougw Member Username: Dougw Post Number: 1302 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 136.2.1.101 |
Thanks for the informative posts, Arcas. I'm trying to remember the meal plan deal they used to have at the dorms at U of M... I think you also had to pay for the equivalent of 2 meals per day in order to stay in the dorm, but there might have been some lower-cost option as well. In any case, requiring a meal plan as part of a dorm deal is not uncommon. Overall, these dorms are a great development for both the city and WSU... |
