UCI On-Campus Housing Problems

As I mentioned quite some time ago, Bill Zeller, then Housing Director at UCI, got fired from his position as Housing Director after completely botching the job he was tasked to do.
Of course, this being academia, the university didn't really fire him, they just moved him around to another position.
He eventually ended up as the Director of the Graduate Student and Postdoc Resource Center.
This shows again, in the UCI administration, you can screw up in your job, and they just give you another job to screw up again.
This is yet another example of where your tax money gets wasted. With the California budget crisis, they really should fire all these under-performers and incompetents. That would save us tax payers a nice chunk of money, and at the same time, would improve the administration of higher education in California.

With Lisa Cornish now UCI's Housing director, the so-called "Graduate First-Year Initiative", GFYI, initiated by her predecessor Bill Zeller, is now done for.
From an email from the current AGS president:

In my conversation with Lisa Cornish last week the status of the GFYI came
up. Lisa has listened to the residents' councils (who have not favored
this program and its subsidizing from rent monies) and has agreed to NOT
hire to fill the vacancy. This in effect "kills" the GFYI program.

This sure is good news. I really hope that this is the start of housing working with the community representatives, not against them.

On July 1, Lisa Cornish, who had been the Executive Director of Graduate and Family Housing, took over the position of Senior Executive Director of Housing.
This means the reign of Bill Zeller is officially over.
The email from Dan Dooros, Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, says in part:

Starting July 1, 2008 Lisa Cornish will hold the title of Senior Executive Director of Housing reporting to me. In this capacity undergraduate and graduate housing, information and technology and Planning, Research, and Administration will report to Lisa.
...
This reorganization provides Housing with a much needed full-time leader who will be exclusively responsible for housing, accessible on a daily basis, and one who is uniquely qualified for the job.

This was long overdue. Whenever I had to do with Lisa, I found her competent and to the point, something I could never say with "slick Bill".
I wish her luck and hope UCI Housing changes to the better now.

I have had a Roomba for nearly a year, and it really is a gods-end for cleaning carpets, in particular with cats around. It also frees up my time. I have it scheduled to clean during the day when I'm not home.
A couple of weeks ago, my Roomba decided to break down. It didn't hold a charge in the battery anymore. I first thought maybe the battery is broken, so I got a new battery. But, no such luck.
So, I decided to contact iRobot customer support, giving them this description of the symptoms:

After resetting the charging system, the Roomba power light is red. After about 20 hours, the power light turns green, but only a light green, not the bright green that indicates a charged battery. When I take the Roomba off the power adapter, the power light goes out. And the Roomba does not start when hitting a clean button.

They determined that based on the symptoms, the Roomba would have to be replaced. Luckily, I am still within the warranty period. So, today, I got an email from iRobot customer support for a warranty replacement.
And they don't require me to send the old unit back:

Because we are not requiring you to return your current unit to us, we ask that you dispose of the robot. This Roomba has been permanently deactivated in our records.

You may strip your Roomba of its parts, such as brushes, brush cover, filter, filter frame, and particle bin, and keep them for spare parts if you wish. It is safe to simply throw away the robot itself.

It is nice to see such good customer support. I was pleasantly surprised.

Update: I have received the new Roomba last week, and it charges the batteries just fine. So it was definitely the Roomba that was broken.

Inside Higher Ed has an article about a student who got expelled for exercising his free speech rights. The student opposed the use of student fees to build new parking garages...
It seems that this is some backwater university which is run by its president as a personal fiefdom, US Constitution be damned.

This reminded me, though, of how Bill Zeller used to run UCI Housing. He also was using student money, in this case student rent money, to rebuild an exit from Palo Verde to Anteater drive. This was done to please two professors who live across the street in the University Hills development.
Maybe this exit should be called the Bill Zeller Memorial Exit, or, given that UCI rarely names anything "Memorial", the Bill Zeller Exit. After all, since Mr. Zeller is no longer Housing director, the exit is his legacy.
And while Mr. Zeller didn't try to silence people who criticized his actions himself, he had his people try to...