Injustice and idiocy at the Cornell Campus Planning Office

When I picked up my 08-09 Cornell planner in August, I quickly noticed a major problem: Acacia was left off the campus map. So was ZBT. Since last year, the map had been cropped on the northern and western ends, cutting out our two houses. [See the online campus map.]

This may not seem like much of a big deal, but it's a huge problem. Freshmen use their campus maps to figure out how to get to fraternity parties. If you drive around on a Friday or Saturday night, you'll see hordes of freshmen wandering around north or west campus, with at least one of them holding onto the campus map.

If we're left off the map, it's much harder for anyone to get to our house. And if fewer people come to our house during the fall semester, numbers will be down for rush. It's a direct correlation.

I called around to figure out to right person to whom to complain, and in mid-September I sent a polite email to the Campus Planning Office. Here's part of it:

[snip]
It appears that the top of the map goes directly through where our house would be (318 Highland Rd on north), but nothing is visible. We have never been cut out of a campus map like this before. Our house is no further north than Pi Beta Phi sorority on Triphammer, so I'm unsure why someone would decide to cut us out of the map entirely while leaving Pi Phi intact.

I recognize that space issues make it difficult to include every relevant building, but it is extremely unfair to include all but two fraternities. Either all houses should be on the map, or none. This puts us at an extreme disadvantage for recruitment, as freshmen looking at their planners will have no idea where we are located.

Several days later, I received a short response from Frank Popowitch:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The 2 houses you mentioned are both on the basemaps we maintain, but are not on the map at [http://www.cornell.edu/maps/large.cfm] for a simple reason. They are both physically outside the area covered. We are already looking at extending the map to the North for the next edition, that we plan to update very soon, so as to include more buildings.

Well, duh. They shrunk the map area from last year, and we were cut off. This was an unacceptable response. I stayed optimistic, however, since Frank said they were going to extend the map to the North "very soon." If they could at least update the online map, that would help us out a lot for rush.

Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, the housing map on the Campus Life website featured a comical blue bar at the top that blocks out our house -- and only our house.

Fast forward to December, and I still had not received any follow-up from Frank or anyone over at Campus Planning. The map had not changed. So I wrote again:

Three months later, there has been no resolution to this issue, and I find this unacceptable. The online campus map still leaves Acacia and at least one other fraternity off. I have talked to leaders from the other house and they have discussed taking legal action. I believe that is an overreaction, but I will ask again that you expand the online map to the northern and western limits of last year's map. Rush week is quickly approaching and if Acacia is not on the campus map, we will see fewer people come to our house and a significant drop in income for the next few years. It is bad enough that we were left off the version of the map that was included in every student planner. I don't think this is an unreasonable request.

I understand that we are the house that is furthest north, but in past years it has not been a problem to include us (or ZBT) on campus maps. Given how competitive the rush process is, it is simply unfair to exclude certain fraternities from the campus map. And it's not like the campus map limits itself to "important" buildings. It extends far to the east to include obscure vet school buildings, and south to include Sage House and Schuyler House.

Here was the response I received from Frank:

Good Afternoon,
I am forwarding this reply on to the Office of Web Communications(OWC). We are still in the process of the next update to the maps. OWC may be able to give you an anticipated date for the next update.

It does not look likely that the map will be updated before rush week starts in a week and a half. I don't care as much if freshmen have trouble finding our house for parties, but as I said, for rush week this can have tremendous consequences. If this map fiasco costs us even two fewer pledges in the spring, that works out to approximately $40,000 in lost revenue over the next three years.

All I ask is that the Campus Planning Office restore the limits of the map to what they were last year. I don't see why this change was made, but it is a clear injustice.

[If I were Metaezra, I would put up a banner at the top of my blog announcing how many days it had been since Acacia was cut off from the map.]