Since the University administration announced its desire to sell the Westmoreland Apartments, home to many students and their families, we have urged officials to clearly explain how sale proceeds would be used.
A University administrator elaborated for the Emerald on Monday the vision for sale money: buying land east of campus and eventually building more residence halls there in the image of the Living Learning Center.
Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke dropped a veritable bombshell by saying the University will finally be able to buy its way out of the draconian consolidated debt pool, which forces the University to pay an unfair share of bond money used to build dormitories at other Oregon public universities.
Westmoreland money would be used for the buy-out and later completely returned to University Housing to buy the land and to build new residence halls.
We applaud the administration for revealing its plan for the money, and getting out of the debt pool is an excellent opportunity. Students who may be displaced from Westmoreland probably won’t want to live in new residence halls.
Dyke mentioned future plans to expand the Graduate Village, but we remain unsure how the University will help displaced nontraditional students, if at all. We hope administrators will seek a way to relocate these students to living arrangements with similar diversity, access to childcare and other services.