faculty center

Below is an exchange of emails between Ann Karagozian, chair of the Academic Senate, and various faculty members who wrote to her and others expressing concern about the proposed demolition of the Faculty Center and its replacement by a conference center/hotel. Various document links are noted in the email below. ================================ Dear Prof. Costa and other Senate colleagues, Thank you for your email message, below. As you are aware, the Senate has received a number of presentations from the administration regarding the proposal to build a Residential Conference Center/Faculty Club on the site of the present Faculty Center. Presentations that…

The LA Conservancy has expressed concern about the replacement of the Faculty Center. The item below summarizes the organization’s position.UCLA FACULTY CENTER THREATENED The 1959 UCLA Faculty Center, now threatened with demolition. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has proposed a Residential Conference Center project that would demolish the campus’ 1959 Faculty Center. Many nearby residents and members of the faculty oppose the project, including more than 200 people who signed a petition asking the Faculty Center Board of Governors to poll its members to gauge support for the demolition. An ad hoc committee called Save the Faculty Center…

To: UCLA Faculty, Homeowner Associations, Community Councils, Other interested parties From: Tracy Dudman, UCLA Capital Programs Subject: Residential Conference Center Informational Meeting After careful review of the comment letters received during the Notice of Preparation period for the UCLA Residential Conference Center (“the Project”), the University has gained invaluable input on the environmental issues that will be addressed in the Draft Environmental Impact Report (“Draft EIR”). The University has received extensive and detailed comments from the internal UCLA community, the local residential community, and the local business community and the University thanks all of these constituencies and other respondents for…

Readers of this blog know that UCLA has a plan to demolish the current Faculty Center and replace it with a conference center/hotel complex. Information on this issue – apart from prior blog entries – is available at http://facultycenter.ucla.edu/FAQs.htm At that link, you can find pro and arguments concerning the project. Added info is that an Ad Hoc Committee to Save the Faculty Center has petitioned the Faculty Center to hold a vote of the membership on the question: Should the Faculty Center be torn down and be replaced by a Convention Center/Hotel and Faculty Club? Yes or No?Arguments for…

A neighborhood association has raised procedural – and possibly legal – objections to the replacement of the UCLA Faculty Club with a Hotel/Conference Center which at latest word is to have over 280 rooms. Two letters from the association have been obtained by the Emeriti Committee. The first is a short, 2-page letter reproduced below. The second is a 14-page letter with much more detail. Both the short letter – which is hard to reproduce clearly as an image – and the longer one are available as a single pdf file at: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BzVLYPK7QI_4N2Q0ZDRiYzMtZDRhMy00YWRkLTlkNjYtNjkyZWQ1YTVjYzY5&hl=en The “CEQA” review to which both letters…

Note: As you read the item below, note that the hotel project still will require considerable bond financing. See the bold italics. UCLA gets $100-million donation: Half of the gift from Meyer Luskin and his wife, Renee, will go to the School of Public Affairs…. The rest will go toward building an on-campus hotel and conference center. Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 26, 2011 A UCLA alumnus who earned a fortune in the animal feed business is donating $100 million to the Westwood campus for its school of public affairs and the controversial construction of an on-campus hotel and…

There have been a couple of earlier posts on this blog about the fate of the UCLA Faculty Center. The most recent is at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2010/11/presentation-available-on-replacement.html In the background is the fact that the Faculty Club has been losing money and requires costly capital maintenance. [If you have trouble when you click on the URL above, just go back to Nov. 29, 2010 on this blog for the entry.] At this point, it appears that the decision to demolish the existing building and replace it with what is called a “residential conference center” seems to be a fait accompli. Those who…

Earlier posts discussed the plan to replace the current UCLA Faculty Center building with a larger convention/hotel type facility. A meeting with Sam Morabito was held in the Faculty Center on Oct. 20 – which yours truly could not attend – but it was videoed and put on the Faculty Center website. Since the existence of the Faculty Club is in peril (although it is eventually supposed to be incorporated into the new building), I have captured the video from the live-stream it preserved it in four parts. That way, the video will be preserved – and whatever promises are…