Let’s face it. UCCS was designed by second rate people to be a second rate school. A simple visit or two is all that is necessary to come to this conclusion. America is full of these second rate schools and all of them have the same features. These middle schools masquerading as universities all were deliberatey designed not to become another Berkeley, Madison, Boulder, UT at Austin, etc. They were designed to be intellectually barren zones, devoid of life, liberty, and happiness. Just what is the formula for doing this that the architects of The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs followed so faithfully?
Location, location, location! That is the key to successfully designing the second rate, nominally public university. You got to build these places out in the boonies far from intellectual family, friends, and community. You want no liberal cafes, bookstores, video stores, nor public places of any kind to pop up. The ideal, is to enclose the campus building within a fortress of parking lots 40-50 miles out of the way. A place amongst the cows, and far from the people. UCCS didn’t quite meet this ideal, as it is not even that physically far from the center of the city. But just try to walk onto the campus from outside! It’s nigh near impossible!
On one side you have the cliffs, and on the other side you have the busy road. Then you have the wall, the signs that disallow parking, the signs saying it is illegal to cross the busy road on foot. Shoot, I’m surprised they don’t have machine guns pointed out over barbed wire blocking the community’s way to keep normal folk of the city away from the impressionable young minds jailed inside! So as it is, you do risk your life by trying to ambulate onto the grounds of higher education designed by second rate people to be second rate. Oh, and to produce conservative credentialed folk that are usually too stupid to realize that they got robbed of any real education by the time they stumble forth once again.
Maybe you want to commute a vehicle to approach this ivory tower of mediocrity? Some delectable conference ‘open’ to the tax payers of Colorado Springs has perhaps tempted you to breach the gates? Go right ahead inside! Pop out of your car, appraoch the automated university pick pocket, and chunk down your $7.00 parking fee. Oh what a bargain, no wonder people are knocking this place down to use a s a community resourse! Not. What you have instead is so-called university designed as gated community. Gated any way you look.
There are two common incorrect assumptions made about the UCCS. Number one- that it is actually a university. Wrong. A university is engaged in education, while UCCS is not. It is engaged in credentialing. That is, it is engaged in credentialing essentially people that remain uneducated. Number two- UCCS is thought of as being a publicly funded school. Not really. Go to their website and see where the money actually comes from.
Sure, some of it is from public taxpayers’ money, like the parking structures and general architecture of the area, all designed to keep the taxpaying lower classes of the public away and off campus. But the big political money comes from super rich people like Philip Anschutz. He just wrote off his taxes to the tune of $92 million given to control the direction that UCCS goes in. Think this supposedly public university is going to allow any public professor to bad mouth Phil? You can take all that chortle and nonsense about balance and free speech away, can’t you? This is a place paid for by the Mr. Bigs.
So you now see why the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs sucks so big time. Big money produces big crap once again in yet another American city. ‘Universities’ everywhere, and all populated by credentialed dunces. Thanks, Philip Anschutz. Thanks big boys. So much money to produce a UCCS! What a waste.
I am a 3 year old dog and I don’t like school not because you have to listen to the teacher all day long but because their dog food sucks.
Mr. Logan,
Although I agree with about the relative lack of accessibility to the campus, I disagree that the primary purpose of UCCS is merely to credential “conservatives.” Most colleges or universities have as their primary purpose the education of the mind. Granted, you can’t educate a mind that doesn’t want to be educated, but the opportunities are there for those who want it. There are plenty of dedicated professors here at UCCS (even some who don’t particularly like Mr. Anschutz and then again, some who do), but being third tier in the CU system leaves us with some less-than-ready students and the professors do try their best with them. However, there are certain programs here that still maintain fairly stringent requirements and do require actual thinking and work to graduate from.
Furthermore, I think you’ll find that, as compared to tax money that is subsidizing the majority of the students’ education here in both Pell grants and subsidized loans (plus the federal grant programs), that Mr. Anschutz’s 92 mil isn’t actually so much. Additionally, other, much larger and respected, public universities such as University of North Carolina and UT at Austin also have millionaire private donors.
And, finally, the accessibility issue is only during the school year and only during weekdays, every other time the parking is free. Since most of the public events, such as Theatreworks’ award-winning productions and guest lecture series, happen when the parking is free, I think the gentleman dost protest too much.
In Truth,
Gavin H. Rogers
Citizen, Veteran, Democrat
Regarding your use of the word “nigh”, in the line “It’s nigh near impossible!”:
You don’t need to use the word “near” in conjunction with the word “nigh”, because the definition of nigh is: “Near in time, place, or relationship.”
So as you can see, this is like saying “It’s near near impossible.” What I would suggest would be to say “It’s well nigh impossible!”. This is one of my favorite words, so I’m always on the lookout for its improper usage.
By the way, I graduated from UCCS, and while I agree it’s not the coolest place in the world, you don’t have to go there, so what’s your problem? Why don’t you go to Berkeley then? At least this is a “real” college that is semi-affordable, surrounded by beaucoup amounts of affordable student housing off-campus. Come on, students don’t come here for the “education” anyway (besides maybe the Engineering students: one of the best campuses in the country for that). But all the LAS students are here mostly to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle that CS has become so famous for.
P.S. Let’s all hope it does NOT become another Berkeley…we’ve all seen what comes out of that later on. And if you don’t like it, move to San Francisco 🙂
Love it or leave it is the refrain of unimaginative conservatives, whether they think themselves astute grammarians or not. I like Colorado Springs and there’s no reason it has to remain the dominion of the poorly educated.
let’s see- Berkeley currently has 22 Nobel Laureates who teach there now- UCCS has NONE and never will. My high school had more of an intellectual climate than UCCS does. UCCS reflects Colo Spgs-enough said
I live in Colordo Springs. All I have to say to the author of this article is right on!
It is safe to say that colleges in America, regardless of what school you attend, are simply not havens for critical thinking, sadly. In fact, it is just the opposite, and schools like UCCS are only concerned with high attendance, making UCCS more like an oversized community college rather than a quality public university. UCCS is growing in attendance because it does, in fact, cater to, and you’re correct, give credentials to conservatives who have no real interest in civil discourse. UCCS is somewhat of an alternative public university: Kids who are from the sprawling exurbs of Colorado Springs come here because schools like UC-Boulder are suspect places, designed to corrupt young minds by liberal professors. Not to say that there is not any of those types of professors at those universities, but UCCS is almost the complete antithesis of critical thinking. One of my professors at UCCS actually said financial aid is the reason tuition rates are sky high, yet his salary is paid to him through pell grants and student loans (not to mention all the military students at UCCS only get to go because the miliatry pays for most of their tuition). The fact of the matter is UCCS likes to hire disingenuous right-wing teachers to fit the religious/conservative inhabitants of Colorado Springs. UCCS epitomizes the notion of going to college and simply getting a diploma for credential purposes, and hopefully employment. Sadly, I enjoy none of my classes and have no real use for what my professors have to say. But then, college is not, and never will be, considered being a part of the real world.
I take great exception to your idiotic and unfounded assessment of the University of Colorado as a part of the great tradition of the University of Colorado System in this state. You obviously are letting off steam about some inner problem and understand little about how Universities work. Go to school and get an education before you embarrass yourself by your self centered ego.
Do you, for a moment, think that your level of intelligence could have contributed any meaningful ideas that could be implemented to improve what you have attempted to dishonor by your self centered drivel?
How dare you to assume that you are brighter than all of the distinguished Educators, Planners, Architects, Engineers, Landscape Architects, plus the University of Colorado President, Bruce Benson and all the donors who support the University.
I assure you that you have no place, or position to attack when you offer no solution to all the so called problems you wrote about. My recommendation to you would be that you enroll, get an education, be a contributor and get a job to be useful instead of ignorant.
j M Seracuse, FAIA
Yawn….
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fairly obvious that this particular post is a spam magnet.
Some of the legitimate comments could be considered spam for the Supremacy or the Anti-Left movements. Some of them like the person who criticized near nigh impossible being a doubling of the term near.
And completely leaving out the part that “near” impossible is in itself impossible. The term impossible is an Absolute which either is or is not.
Near Absolute, almost everybody, etc… I just think it’s hilarious the person who went all grammar nazi about it did the same thing. Repeatedly. Not very easy writing a couple thousand words and not making any errors. Hell, I’m nearly perfect myself, the only thing that keeps me from calling myself perfect is my overwhelming honesty. Conceit is a fault and I have no faults.
But even the Great and Mighty I have made typing mastikes. That last one doesn’t actually count because it’s deliberate.