How to improve our campus ambience:

• Replace diesel fuel by organic or ethanol substitutes for the campus shuttle buses. It is great to have regular transportation to various locations and essential given the lack of decent city-bus transportation. But the fumes which result from idling diesel-fuel buses are quite unpleasant and make the waiting area rather toxic. This is an opportunity to try out more ecological approaches!
• Make loud and continuous complaints to the DC council, mayor's office, and DC police department until the DC police do a proper job of patrolling the streets near campus.
• Why don't we have anyplace decent for lunches and snacks? The renovations in Leavey Center have actually made meals even worse than they were before. Now that Sugar's Campus Deli has been replaced by a Starbuck's wannabe, there is noplace pleasant to go for lunch. Wouldn't it be a good investment to subsidize a gourmet-level casual restaurant? (Think of, e.g., U. of Cal., Santa Cruz.) The top floor of the bookstore is currently full of empty boxes and stacks of unsold (overpriced) textbooks, but it overlooks the lovely and underutilized esplanade on top of Leavey Center. It could be converted into the sort of place that would be really pleasant. We could leave the fast-food area for the hospital and others who need a quick but horrible meal.