The housing advocacy organization Sustainable University Now (SUN) filed legal papers on UCSB this week, charging campus administrators have failed to comply with the state’s Public Records Act by withholding access to internal campus documents relating to now-shelved plans hatched by UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang and the late billionaire investor Charles Munger to build a massive student dorm that would have housed 3,500 students.
That project, known officially as Munger Hall and later dubbed Dormzilla, drew national scorn and notoriety when it came out that the majority of dorm rooms had no windows but instead video simulations.
Dick Flacks, a former UCSB sociology professor and the moving force behind SUN, said Yang and the campus chose at some point not to pursue smaller and more numerous dorm housing alternatives, opting instead to go for a grand slam with Munger Hall.