Berenice Ramirez, a 26-year-old graduate student plans to move out of the University’s Westmoreland housing complex in June. She said she had hoped to stay at Westmoreland for all three years of her graduate program because her $395 two-bedroom apartment would be impossible to match. She said she has enjoyed Westmoreland’s good environment for studying and relaxing away from the noise and bustle closer to campus.
Westmoreland, the University’s family housing complex roughly three miles west of campus, was put up for sale in October 2005.
Ramirez said she feels the sale announcement from the University was, “pretty sneaky.”
“I felt very disappointed,” she said. “It would have been nice of them to say, ‘we’re thinking about this, and these are our reasons.’”
Ramirez expects to spend at least $500 in monthly rent at another place with less space. As a minority student from Texas, she said affordable housing options are very important to those coming here from across the nation and from other countries.
“You can’t be a successful student if you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to pay the rent?’” she said.
Ramirez said she was not surprised when she learned that the University President is a former Republican political candidate.
“I come from Texas, and I saw a lot of Republican measures cutting the universities,” she said.
She said she would like to see the University fairly compensate those who have to move, though she fears that the school would put so many paperwork hurdles in the way that students would be discouraged from applying.
Undergraduate Chris Omundson, 23, left his Westmoreland home in April. He said he feels lucky because his friend offered him a rental house, but worries about the rest of the Westmoreland residents who don’t have extra resources or connections. His roommate had to look for a second job just to afford the move-in costs of a new apartment. Omundson said he was distraught when he learned of the sale.
“What got me really angry was how callous I thought Frohnmayer’s response was. They were cold-hearted. It was portrayed as if they didn’t care at all about who was living here,” he said.
Twenty five-year-old graduate student Adam Arola lived for almost four years at the Westmoreland while pursuing his Ph.D. in Philosophy. With only one year left in his program, he said moving was “extraordinarily inconvenient.”
Arola said the stress and time have affected his studies and his work as a graduate teaching fellow. He and his wife now pay $200 more a month in rent. He said graduate students should be valued by the University.
“The university dies without its graduate students. They’re not getting professors to grade all the papers and lead all the discussion sections. If GTF’s can’t afford housing on the salaries they’re provided by the university, then graduate students will go elsewhere.”
Arola said his friends at other universities make two or three times more for GTF work than he does.
“I think this is an educational sweatshop, given how little we get paid,” he said, musing about how such a theft of affordable housing could happen here.
“I’m not exactly convinced that Eugene is nearly as progressive as it likes to present itself. I lived in Ann Arbor for years and if this had happened there, there would have been just a complete uproar.”
All three students said the experience has left them jaded, and less likely as future alumni and donors to contribute to a school under such poor management.