A brand new, life-changing opportunity awaits UB students living in University Heights. Instead of simply attending their classes, students residing on such avenues as Winspear, Lisbon and Northrup can actually eat, sleep and live less than 10 feet away from their professors and TAs.
Or, at least, that is the proposal President William R. Greiner discussed last Tuesday on "Talk of the University," the monthly radio show on WBFO. The university will start a program to ensure the bank loans of UB employees who want to purchase homes in University Heights. Set to begin in two months, Greiner claimed that upwards of 200 employees could be co-signed by the university to live in the district of choice of poor undergraduates and Greek parties.
Before addressing the flawed motives behind Greiner's announcement, the sheer ridiculousness of the plan draws attention to itself. It's safe to say the last person any college student wants living next door is the one that determines the student's GPA. Recent controversy between the older residents and college students in the district should tip Greiner off that infusing the area with more adults will only cause more problems. Whether residents of University Heights like it, the neighborhood is made of college students. As long as places like The Steer, Sal's Pizzeria and Stimulance are open, it will stay that way.
The argument works the other way around, also. Professors probably have no interest co-mingling in the same neighborhood where their students drink. Ramshackle, run-down houses and criminal activity do not make a neighborhood the ideal place to start a family. Then, too, encouraging the faculty to buy homes in the district could potentially make them landlords over members of the student body; this is an obvious conflict of interest and interference within the lives of students that should not be encouraged by the administration.
The administration may also promote this living option for its non-teaching employees, such as janitors, secretaries, cooks and accountants. But this presents the problem of ensuring loans to employees who, unlike the teaching staff, are less bound to the university system and can quit any time. The university would have to fork over the cash for any employee who defaults on their payment. Needless to say, this is not a good business arrangement.
This seems a facile attempt by the administration to appease the complaints of older residents in the district, as well as the usual criticisms that UB does little to assist Buffalo. The plan does not even address the problems of the area itself, especially crime. Guaranteeing bank loans won't stop people from getting mugged or shot in University Heights.
The right way to intervene in University Heights is to help improve the lives of the students who live there. By initiating a program to assist the district, Greiner is tacitly admitting that the university bears responsibility in the condition of the urban neighborhood. If the administration is willing to co-sign loans in the area, then it is also willing to invest in it. UB should take into account the model of Canisius College, which complimented its urban campus by building new apartments for its students in the city.
Without the students, University Heights would be a wasted sprawl made up of low-income residents who would do nothing to help boost the local business of the area. While some may complain of their lifestyle, it is the students, not the older residents, who give the neighborhood its identity and allow the businesses to prosper. Their continued involvement in the district is not only a privilege, but also a necessity.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
