By: osualumemployee

osualumemployee
Sat, 05 Sep 2015 13:31:19 +0000

It is so refreshing to see some honest assessment of what has become OSU, Inc. and environs. i have lived on or near OSU campus for the 45 years I have lived in Columbus (sorry just cannot adopt CBUS) and campus was a great environment until it became a business and all of the decisions were turned over to Wexner and his associates in the late 80s,90s and especially the start of this century. He brought in Elwood who everyone saw and continues to believe was the savior of TOSU as president -twice because he could glad-hand anyone with a pulse and purse and use his uncanny memory to fool people into believing he cared-he was and is a puppet of the few families that control and run Columbus and TOSU, INC. It is a telling sign that hardly any of the senior members of the management team have any interest in or experience in education per se---they are business people who have ensconced their own minions in positions underneath them to place the entire focus of this once fine institution on MONEY not education. Some of it is driven by the state of Ohio's abysmal track record funding and supporting education from K-Phd. When Ohio was the 5th wealthiest state in the US-Ohio was 48th in education-below Mississippi in aid to education. A reflection of that was that after years of neglect and lack of real support from Columbus-which was always a gigantic leech off of OSU and its students and employees -they turned their attention to east of High as they saw the gigantic prospect of re-making it into something they could market and profit off of at the same time. The gentrification of the ShoNoVikital neighborhoods (short north, victorian village, italian village) made it imperative in their eyes to stop the flow of undesirable people completely overtaking the near east of High neighborhoods because the displaced peoples migrated up to campus housing - greed and unimaginative design took over and the result is a very bland, soul-less South Campus Gateway -lots of plans for the old gateway to campus -15th and High area -which will not happen without a profound infusion of money which OSU does not have. It is very very sad to see off the off campus area look the way it does and no you cannot put luxury on a horribly constructed overpriced building and call it an improvement -living above a Wendys or Taco Bell... of course they were successful in making it the norm to charge per bed rather than per unit for rent and that is why some real estate cabal's get Manhattan rents for uninhabitable dumps. Where is the old Tenant's Union and new Libby Gregory's (RIP Lib) -when we need them. The bland-conversion to Eastonesque wanna-be environs are what everyone wants now -right? I will take a real heart and soul campus area- not a cookie-cutter indistinguishable look that could easily be out in a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere and have the same look as so many others-at least the CEO's would be safe and their patronages could go on and on and on.