Dear Mr. Frohnmayer:
Attached to this letter you will find two invoices. One is for $1,507.00 for the L. Mila Warn University of Oregon scholarship that my daughter won, but had to give up because she can’t attend your university because of your self-inflicted 2008-2009 housing problem. The other is an invoice for her $200 advance tuition deposit.
I am sure at this point you are wondering why I am invoicing you for my daughter’s unused scholarship and your “sacred non-refundable” advance tuition deposit. Well in my mind the reason is clear: You, as president of the University of Oregon since 1994, screwed up big time! Instead of having a plan to regularly update and increase the number of residence hall rooms on your campus and selling that plan to the legislature over the 14 years of your presidency, you instead waged an advertising campaign on television, radio, print and on a prominently placed billboard next to I-5 in downtown Portland to attract more students to your University, without providing any additional housing. This campaign was done at the time when your residence halls were rated among the worst in the whole country. I recently walked around your campus and most of the dorms looked like the dorms I saw while touring the old mental hospital in Salem for a psychology class in the 1970s. It is also my understanding that only one dorm complex has been built on your campus in the last 30 years.
I printed this statement off your biography on the University of Oregon official site for the Office of the President.
“He has advanced that goal of developing a better university through an emphasis on new approaches to more effective teaching and through fundraising efforts to endow teaching positions, establish more student scholarships, and create a number of new academic programs. In addition, he has led efforts to bring to campus a new law center, a new student recreation center and science facilities, and additions to the art museum, the business college, and Autzen Stadium.”
I hope you notice there is not one word about improving and building residence halls for your students. Keep in mind that most of your incoming freshmen are 17 or 18 years old and have never been away from home. Allen Gidley, your Housing Director, has told more than 700 sets of parents that they are on their own, that the University can’t really help them, and they need to find off campus housing for their kids. Ninety-nine percent of these parents don’t live in Eugene and they have absolutely no knowledge of the Eugene rental market. They will in most cases be forced to shop for an apartment on the Internet. While it is true that you have no requirement that freshman live on campus and you have no legal obligation to provide housing for your students, I believe you and Mr. Gidley have a moral obligation to provide students who want University housing with housing.
Since in my opinion you failed to uphold this reasonable moral obligation you owe me $1,707.00. I also think you owe every applicant who paid the $200 advance tuition deposit but had to switch college choices because of your housing planning ineptitude their money back, too.
John Hardy
Portland resident
[email protected]