UCI On-Campus Housing Problems

NOTE: This blog post is not about the Princeton Graduate student Bill Zeller.

I have received a copy of an email that Manuel Gomez, the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, sent out today.
According to that email, Bill Zeller is no longer director of UCI Housing.
Of course, to allow him to keep face, they didn't fire him outright, but put him on a position where he (hopefully) can do less damage. And they call it "temporary"...
They did the same kind of thing before with Kevin Ansel, then Housing's IT director (see here and here.)

Anyway, here is the email:

From: "Manuel N. Gomez, Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs"
Date: June 28, 2007 6:43:48 PM PDT
To: "All Campus Employees": ;"All Campus Employees":;
Subject: Housing Update

Dear Colleagues:

I am writing to announce a staffing change in the Division of the Vice Chancellor Student Affairs. Effective July 1, 2007, Dr. William Zeller, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Housing, will temporarily be assigned to develop Co-Curricular Programs for the Office of the Vice Chancellor Student Affairs. Over the past four years, Bill has made good progress in implementing a strategic plan for Student Housing which has set a new direction for the organization. In particular, the co-curricular program component has great potential for enhancing student life at UCI. I am charging Dr. Zeller to help expand our goals for supporting the transition of new undergraduate and graduate students to the campus, and provide the highest quality of campus life experiences for our students. Bill will be working collaboratively with various campus partners, both within and outside Student Affairs.

While Bill is performing these duties I have asked Associate Vice Chancellor Dan Dooros to assume the leadership responsibilities in Student Housing.

Sincerely,

Manuel N. Gomez
Vice Chancellor
Student Affairs

Of course, the "co-curricular program component" is what used to be called the "first-year initiative," which is just a big waste of (rental) money. Essentially, they think that graduate students are unable to manage their lives, and need hand-holding... That is particularly funny when they try to give "advice" to somebody who, before going to grad school, had earned more money than they do...

And the "first-year initiative" was run by a person under Zeller. So this is obviously a demotion, from running a multi-million Campus Housing operation to running a committee.