Haas May Take Over Bowles
University planners are considering moving the Haas business school’s profitable executive-education programs into Bowles Hall, a 77-year-old Gothic mansion known for its wacky traditions. If selected for the Haas program, the building would house up to 150 corporate leaders while they attended business seminars.
Campus officials say Bowles is one of several sites being considered, but the proposal has already offended alumni who have battled with the university over sometimes rowdy Bowles traditions. School officials this year instituted a freshmen-only policy in the all-male dorm, partly to cut down on drinking and parties among the 200 residents.
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Haas leaders say they understand the strong feelings that have led Bowles alumni to return year after year to meet new residents of the castlelike dormitory, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Other possible sites include a historic complex south of campus and two parking lots. An anonymous $25 million donation will help the business school afford the project, which would include renovations to the historic sites or a new building on a parking lot.
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Bowles Hall, perched next to Memorial Stadium on the east side of campus, is known for traditions such as the Bowles Hall Drinking Song and “the Thing,” a statue hidden annually around the massive building. The song has long been played for Bowles residents — called “Bowlesmen” — by the Cal marching band after home football games.
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At Bowles, current residents say many of the dorm’s traditions died off this year when upperclassmen were removed. The university doesn’t seem to understand Bowles’ value to the campus, some said.”
I don’t have any personal feelings about this, but a large number of current/former Bowles residents seem awfully upset about this. I would suspect that the previously move by the university to allow only freshman to live in the building will probably end up killing off a lot of the Bowles traditions in the near future anyway.
It sure would be awesome if all these Bowles folks put up a big fight and ended up getting to keep their dorm.
I don’t understand the premise here…is this temporary housing for execs during the summer (which is what a lot of other schools do), or would this displace Bowles residents year-round?
If it’s the former, they should absolutely do it. The place would get a total makeover.
If it’s the latter, it’s an awful idea.
Comment by Anonymous — December 1, 2005 @ 8:54 am
No controversy either way: just engage the execs in the Bowles traditions instead.
Comment by McMike — December 1, 2005 @ 11:11 am
Screw the overpriced dorms. Maybe Haas should privatize Bowles and make a better deal for residents.
Comment by Anonymous — December 1, 2005 @ 11:19 am
I lived in foothill my frosh year and found them terribly annoying with their boorish behavior and poor imitation of a fraternity without any selection process, not to say that most frats think much past the amount of girls he’ll bring by or number of beers a rushee can drink.
Now I find Bowles oddly endearing. This is a travesty as the house is not a dorm but a piece of tradition that this moron from Toronto would abolish. We wouldnt want any hints of exclusion anywhere. We’re not really an elite institution, you know. Cal, generally, mixes nicely with the two worlds but at this point, why not sell the campus out to business interests? Maybe rennovate it and put in a jousting pit for tourists and family members to gawk at. Really, is nothing sacred? Does it matter that Cal has a past or do we just focus on appearing to be well balanced, diverse, inclusive and oh yea pumping out as many bio-science patents that corporations need?
a romantic
Comment by Fmr Foothiller — December 1, 2005 @ 3:27 pm
What a horrible idea.
While the University has built 1,100 new units of housing, there still is a demand, and any efforts to reduce the supply of housing for undergraduates is a step in the wrong direction.
I lived in Bowles Hall my freshman and sophomore year, and what drew me there were the traditions.
Unfortunately, due to some stupid actions on the part of residents, the University began to crack down on Bowles on sophomore year.
The Halloween party that year had an overabundance of UC Police and many people including friends of mine were arrested for alcohol violations, with the police going in people’s rooms uninvited and checking.
Thereafter the University banned midnight singing and other traditions. It seemed that they wanted to end any remanents of Bowles. Probably to prepare for the Haas takeover.
The last straw was when they banned returning students from coming back this year. While the Bowles that I and many generations of students knew is basically gone, to close out other students is a terrible decision.
It is my hope that other former residents will express their concerns and the University will keep Bowles as university housing for all students.
Comment by Jesse Arreguin — December 1, 2005 @ 4:32 pm
I agree. Why shut down undergrad housing when it’s been so hard-earned?
But again: is this a year round solution, or would Haas take over just in the summer?
Comment by Bhanu Singh — December 1, 2005 @ 5:00 pm
dont company execs make enough money to rent a hotel room instead of living in some old-ass dorm?
Comment by slam it — December 1, 2005 @ 7:38 pm
Haas should be building a slick new housing center on an adjacent lot. Leave Bowles as it is (or rather, the University should put money into sprucing it up, and keeping it for undergrads).
Comment by Bhanu Singh — December 1, 2005 @ 8:19 pm
Company execs make enough money to tell Cal to build a hotel-like place in what is now a dorm.
Comment by Beetle — December 1, 2005 @ 8:24 pm
I know im gonna get it from all angles on this one but doesnt anyone notice that the pink mafia of RDs is behind this. once bowles was assigned one of its own. it was over. the gay clique that monopolizes the RD posts hate the misogyny and homophobia that bowles exuded and finally got its wish when they were able to assign full time security and crack down on “misfits”. personal experience, a friend was expelled for cursing the RD for his restrictive policies and liberally using epithets, he wasnt right but the expulsions before and after his sent shockwaves through the bowles halls, keep your mouth shut and your head down or your next and too boot theyll prosecute, which they did!
Comment by terrible person — December 1, 2005 @ 10:42 pm
Bowles used to have a really cool RD a long time ago. He was a gay closet conservative when his RAs heard him listening to Rush Limbaugh. I would like to say a bit more about the RD’s. All the male RD’s are gay and half of the female RD’s are lesbian and half are straight.
Please expand, “terrible person” because I used to work at RSSP as well and I have quite a lot to say about them. All housing departments are corrupt and misguided.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 12:59 am
There was a big ruckus raised amongst the housing professional staff two years ago during the first iteration of their insane “Tunnel of Oppression” thing. Apparently the RDs got all worked up about how Bowles had songs making fun of the women in Stern, and how (I never figured out if this is true or not) the Bowlesmen watched porn at their Hall Ass meetings. It was around that time that I first heard mention of the idea that all the “problems” with Bowles were because they always had returning residents to “keep the traditions alive”. Oh, and apparently they upped security at the Halloween Party because an RD was being threatened by a drunken resident and the RD had to lock himself inside a room to get away from the guy.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 1:17 pm
wait wait…
so all of the resident directors (??) are gay and thus hate bowles b/c of traditions that appear misogynist/homophobic? i know a couple of gay guys who lived in bowles and they loved it and never complained one bit about that stuff. aye.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 1:26 pm
What a weird accusation
Comment by Kevin! — December 2, 2005 @ 2:02 pm
Yes, ALL of the male resident directors are gay. And they’re all left wing nuts who never lived a day in the real world. The moderate ones who opposed the tunnel of oppression and such were slowly weeded out of the system.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 2:12 pm
Who keeps asking stupid questions about the exec program and its schedule? You know, Haas has a Website! You could actually, I don’t know, READ it! If you’re posting comments to a blog, I expect you should know how to navigate the campus website or perform a web search.
http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/
http://www.berkeley.columbia.edu/
There are good reasons that the university would be considering using Bowles for Haas MBA’s: 1) It would give Bowles and the university access to money to make VERY NECESSARY improvements to the outdated facility that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. It’s the same reason that part of the new stadium is being used for Business/Law classrooms. 2) Because those executive students currently stay and attend classes in hotels in San Francisco, which is not exactly giving them any sort of “Berkeley” experience. 3) Haas Business School has outgrown its facilities and there isn’t exactly room to grow in Berkeley, especially nearby the school. Their high ranking brings prestige to the university and can’t be sustained with the current facility.
And don’t blame the “idiot from Toronto” for this. The new chancellor has nothing to do with these events and personally I think he’s doing a damn good job. If you want to blame somebody, blame the Dean of Haas, or Associate Vice Chancellor (of student services) Harry Le Grande. This is the last thing the chancellor would be concentrating his time on.
FYI, I’m an engineering grad, so I don’t want to hear any whining about me being biast.
Comment by J — December 2, 2005 @ 2:29 pm
I forgot to mention. If you’d like to complain about the new Bowles housing policies, etc., you can reach Associate Vice Chancellor Harry Le Grande at:
Residential and Student Services Building
2610 Channing Way
Berkeley, CA 94720-2272
Phone: (510) 642-7781
Fax: (510) 643-0056
E-mail: legrande@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Comment by J — December 2, 2005 @ 2:34 pm
Ok, first of all complaining to RSSP is useless. They have the mentality that they can sell the dorms at whatever price they want, be it 10,000 a year for a shit room and they’re not going to listen to you. They take joy in fucking freshmen over.
They also don’t care about a range of issues from freedom of speech to realistic policies.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 2:58 pm
J– “biast” ?? youre making us engineering grads look dumb.
Comment by bob — December 2, 2005 @ 3:25 pm
J,
I did try looking the schedules up. I wasn’t able to find out what the intended schedule for executive housing (concerning Bowles) is. Perhaps you could post that link instead of giving us lames generic leads.
It’s great if the exec program at Haas does well and generates revenue. Just don’t do it by getting rid of undergrad housing–that’s moving in the wrong direction.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — December 2, 2005 @ 4:30 pm
you know, if the undergrad wieners and the idiot admins are going to collude to pretend that the UC is “poor” and “cant afford” the costs of running the university, i suggest they all get together and suck some cock to make the money. after all, these business wankers that come to these programs pay a whole hell of a lot more for a blowjob than they will for a dormroom, and you dont have to give up any housing!
and theres another angle: if were going to get into the hospitality business, well, just think of all the money we are losing to the sex industry, we oughta try to make some inroads into that as well.
PS: I think we could pull in at least 10K for “blowjobs by the Birge”. If we put him on ebay, even more… The listing title will be “blowjobs by birgy bob by baghdad by da bay”.
Comment by mano — December 2, 2005 @ 5:11 pm
bhanu, we can have an alumni suckoff program too, just so you dont feel left out. then again, i wouldnt be surprised if you had already found yourself a few rich capitalists to fellate, just for the bragging rights.
Comment by mano — December 2, 2005 @ 5:15 pm
wow. this conversation has made an interesting turn.
Comment by Dan the Yank — December 2, 2005 @ 5:44 pm
yes, courtesy of mano.
as everyone can plainly see, he sure knows how to engage in intelligent debate.
no one i know can so quickly turn a discussion about housing for a b-school executive learning program into a tirade about the chancellor giving head.
mano, you REALLY DO need to write the Sex on Tuesday column.
Comment by Bhanu Singh — December 2, 2005 @ 5:52 pm
…and because everyone loves an backup plan… heres PLAN B:
we just kick out all you wiener undergraduates. after all, almost none of you have even a 1000th of the bankroll of these executives. why are we more educated research-oriented folks (grads, profs) even bothering with your stupid asses, when we could just focus on educating rich executive stupid asses who can pay 100 times what you can! public university my ass. money talks, and all we gotta do is listen! its not like anyone will give a fuck about the undergrads
.
but if undergrads REALLY want to stick around, therell be jobs as personal/executive “assistants” and you can learn marketable skills like “wardrobe selection”. and maybe well make a special exception those who suckup hard enough, or those who are good looking/talented, so you can stick around and perform or play sports and otherwise entertain us.
Comment by mano — December 2, 2005 @ 5:55 pm
Anonymous, it is absolutely true we watchted porn at Hall-Ass meetings. The RD (the one who had to lock himself in his room, who, incidentally, is the gay republican) completely approved, too. Sadly, he decided he wanted a life and left, as do all other normal, reasonable RDs, leaving in charge only the pathetic losers who can’t stand to see males having fun.
Comment by former bowlesman — December 2, 2005 @ 7:27 pm
Hey former bowlesman, I’d actually been told it was a different RD who locked himself in a room… but you never know what’s true and what’s false coming from RFL these days.
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2005 @ 10:03 pm
mano-
i usually don’t agree with your left wing socialist rants, but i have to say, and i’m being comletely honest, that was the most hilarious thing i’ve ever read on calstuff. keep up the good work, and the posts about birgeneau sucking cock for money.
Comment by captain anoymous — December 2, 2005 @ 11:25 pm
former bowlesman,
I’m sick of RFL’s stupid notiont hat they’re on a mission to spread social justice through RA’s, Hall ass and their sorry selves who don’t have lives and can’t function in a normal society. I had a lot of respect for Jerry, and suddenly, two more moderate RD’s vacated their spots when they saw what was happening to the dorms.
Meanwhile, they force all the residents and RA’s to be subjected to tunnels of oppression, a forced theme called “practicing inclusion” which was, ironically, hostile to all political opinions as their own, and bringing in speakers who condemn white people and the “system”.
I mean, I’m no fucking necon Republican by any means but come on! The job of RFL is to provide FAIR housing, serving the students at Berkeley. What do they do instead? They spend tens of thousands of dollars to indoctrinate residents about the “perfect world.” What do they do instead? They subsidize their diversity budget by raising fees (it costs unbelieveable amounts to live in a cramped triple with SHIT food). They also apparently force their RA’s to listen to indoctrination sessions under pain of being fired. My Program Assistant (some RA who doesn’t go on duty apparently) told me that they brainwashed the hall staff for 2 weeks and never taught them how to do basic RA functions. My RA admitted she didn’t know how to enforce policies or do programs because the organization was too busy condemning white people.
As a liberal, I’m disgusted by a system that doesn’t serve Residents and instead serves the deep pockets of RFL.
Comment by Anonymous from #18 — December 3, 2005 @ 1:03 am
a woman from egypt locked herself in her room at ihouse, and they would bring her a tray, and she would pee at 4am.
Look at their prices now! It only would make sense if you have zero time to search for a room before coming here, or there is no availability. For a grad student, monthly, this is the entire GSI pay, so they’ll have to resort to finding free used items for other needs. I wonder if they have problems filling rooms this year: http://ihouse.berkeley.edu/l/room_info.html#rates
Comment by lumix — December 3, 2005 @ 9:07 am
Ahhh, I-house, with its cheesy, drug- and sex- addled, bon-vivant, jet-setting euro-trash.I think that we should install a discoball in the cafe and mandate the playing of cheesy european disco-pop.And then THAT’S where we should stick the Haas executives!
Comment by Anonymous — December 3, 2005 @ 10:43 am
Ahhh, I-house, with its cheesy, drug- and sex- addled, bon-vivant, jet-setting euro-trash.I think that we should install a discoball in the cafe and mandate the playing of cheesy european disco-pop.And then THAT’S where we should stick the Haas executives!
Comment by Anonymous — December 3, 2005 @ 10:43 am
If it’s the Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA Program (not sure), here is the term schedule:
http://www.berkeley.columbia.edu/schedule/dates.html
Comment by N — December 3, 2005 @ 10:50 am
they totally should, because I bet they have empty rooms. I met interesting and some wealthy people in there, but spent twice my normal on rent.
oh, connection with the servicing of the businessmen concept - read this transcript from the O’Reilly sex harrassment trial. I remember in the business ed. class for slow-thinkers in high school, there was a big group of dumb sports kids constantly talking about their future offices with female secretaries at their whim.. and I thought it was ridiculous because they clearly weren’t the type to read for pleasure, but it might have transpired by now (read page 9-18): http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013043mackris9.html
Comment by lumix — December 3, 2005 @ 12:11 pm
Anonymous #18
Well, RFL can’t change because it’s a system built on a monopoly and they don’t have to answer to anyone. Landlords have to consider profits, expenses and the market; RFL just has to consider their paychecks. The most liberal costs of living int he dorms, food and yes, even the shoddy security they offer, amounts to less than 8,000 a year living with a roommate (double). They charge more than 10,000 a year for a triple and the “security” is an idiot who sits behind a booth and forces people to swipe cards.
So what if someone walked in with a gun… what’s the SM going to do? Force the person to swipe their card?
Comment by Anonymous — December 3, 2005 @ 3:23 pm
yep - quick google search, it seems like adjacent states have cheaper rates, and it’s not clear why. Do we pay cafeteria workers so much? Here - for the cheapest room and meal plan, winter quarter, it is about $600/month - which isn’t that much more expensive than a co-op or an apartment room plus cooking reasonably for self. Meal plans sound like a great way to develop a binge eating problem.
http://www.housing.wwu.edu/financial/pdf/2005-2006Details.pdf
And here it’s not clear why freshmen pay a surcharge, but I believe these are costs for a whole year - and $5600 is cheaper than the Cal rate. http://www.asu.edu/studentaffairs/reslife/rates_payments.htm
Comment by lumix — December 4, 2005 @ 10:26 am
Since when was being a jet-setting bon-vivant a BAD thing?
Comment by an000n — December 5, 2005 @ 9:51 am
I think the being “trash” part was supposed to be the insulting bit. The jet setting bon vivant parts merely describe them
Comment by Dan the Yank — December 8, 2005 @ 9:02 am
Dan,
depends who is saying it. bon-vivant and jet-setting can be used in a disparaging fashion, to describe idle and self-indulgent people. and it was intended that way here…
bottom line, all the adjectives provide context, you cant look at them individually.
Comment by mano — December 8, 2005 @ 9:37 am
Every year, lots of freshman guys get stuck in Bowles Hall, because the alumni insist that it stay open, so then they have to fill the place up. I lived there my freshman year. I know some guys really liked living there, but there were a lot of us who never wanted to, and who didnt have a good time. There’s a reason why most students choose to pay so much to live on campus for their first year… to start their social networks/etc… most people I know are still good friends with some of the people they lived with/near. Its stupid then to comprimise a freshman’s dorm experience. And given that the place only houses 200 guys total, there no reason why anyone should be forced to live there, esp now that there isnt the same housing shortage. Personally, I think it should be turned into a university hotel or some kind of historical archive. If it stays a dorm, at least dont force students to live there because its their only option for on-campus housing.
Comment by Dave Madan — December 12, 2005 @ 2:33 pm
Don’t make freshmen live there? You’re talking about living in a castle with a turret view of the whole bay area. Its on one of the most picturesque spot on campus, and you’d rather students get a “freshman experience” by living in cramped-ass unit triples? Wow. You’re soooo cool.
Comment by Anonymous — December 14, 2005 @ 3:09 am
Fuck RFL, no matter what housing you live in. They revel in fucking students over.
Comment by Anonymous — December 14, 2005 @ 10:44 am