As some of you new students may have noticed by now, Mills is not exactly in “the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area.” In fact, Camp Mills is kind of its own little isolated universe, divided from our East Oakland neighborhood by a wall which — in some places — is actually a fence with barbed wire.
Unsuprisingly, this barbed wire is not featured in the official brochure or on the website.
To merely call the euphemistic description of our location “false advertising” does not fully acknowledge the problematic physical isolation of Mills from the surrounding community.
Certainly Mills is taking noteworthy steps to climb itself down from the ivory tower — namely, implementing of the Investing in Oakland program this summer. However, students must also make the effort to climb down. Nothing will change if we just stay home in our dorms Rapunzel-style.
Don’t get us wrong: warm and tingly feelings for Mills abound here in the newsroom. However, The Campanil staff encourages students both returning and brand new to burst the Mills bubble, so to speak, whenever possible.
This could include such things as just setting foot off campus (for those of us non-commuters). Occasionally taking the shuttle to Rockridge to get sushi does not count.
So whip out those bus passes you already paid for and explore our Oakland neighborhood; a place that can be just as magical as San Francisco whether or not it gets put on a brochure.
