There’s no place like home at BBC

Diego Saldana-Rojas/ Staff Writer

There’s nothing quite like getting kicked out of home, especially when it’s due to the self-serving interests of your university.

This “Worlds Ahead” institution somehow turned the “impossible,” leaving housing students without a place to live, into the “inevitable.”

Why were the 300 or so students evicted? To make way for the wonderful opportunities and lucrative business partnerships with Royal Caribbean Ltd, a partnership that promises the University $2.2 million.

As the University’s public relations outlet, news.fiu.edu, stated in a post in January, “The current Bay Vista residence hall will undergo a multi-million dollar renovation by Royal Caribbean to house its performers training at the facility.”

In other words, FIU signed away a whole new building to a private company to house it’s employees, the majority of which are undoubtedly not University students.

The University will tell you all the benefits this partnership will bring.

President Mark Rosenberg said in a statement last December that 20 internships would be provided to students from the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and School of Architecture and the Arts.

The space being built to train Royal Caribbean performers consists of 10 rehearsal spaces, a 300-seat theatre, and a 20,000 square foot costume making facility. It will be available to the school of Architecture of Arts students when Royal Caribbean isn’t using it.

But when will they be open to the arts students? What if there is a conflict in booking? Will Royal Caribbean get preference?

The idea of students getting housing by Fall 2015 is up in the air.

In an August student affairs meeting at BBC, it was announced that the company in charge of building the new student housing facility had halted construction. This only added to the amount of time students will have to wait for a place of their own.

The University also wiped it’s hand cleans in providing accommodations outside of campus. It did not suggest to students where to go. Doing would be a liability for them. This left Bay Vista students with two options: Head to MMC, regardless of whether they have class there or not,  or find their own place outside campus grounds.

What’s most ‘tucked’ up is the University’s willingness to rush to bed with Royal Caribbean, providing housing for cruise line employees without having built housing for BBC students first. It’s clear- it’s money before students.

-diego.saldana@fiusm.com