Despite a faculty that includes five Nobel Prize winners and being ranked in the Top 5 among public universities in the nation, UC Santa Barbara is seldom mentioned in southern California’s major newspaper — the Los Angeles Times.
But all that changed early this month when 10 Letters to the Editor were published in the Times, led by a long opinion piece by the architect, Dennis McFadden, whose resignation led to much of the furor, and an editorial staff opinion on the same date.
All missives concentrate on the absence of “real” windows in the 11-story, $1.5 billion dorm UCSB proposes to build on campus, with $200 million contributed by the building’s designer, the unsanctioned architect Charlie Munger, as though this was the only issue at stake.