A snarky piece from an English professor, using building and facility names as a hook for writing about the dissonance of having money for new buildings, but not for faculty salaries. Useful for a reminder about faculty perceptions:

“Architecture is sexy. Faculty salaries aren’t.” So, for the next five years, or until the moolah runs out, the U of All People campus will be alive with the cheerful roar of electric saws, cement mixers, and nail guns. Here are just a few of the current building projects:

The Tip Tapp School of Dance: named after alumnus George Tapp, whose latest trophy wife, Tip, wanted something more substantial than another house in the Hamptons. This 40,000square-foot facility will contain five soundproof rehearsal rooms, a 3,000-seat auditorium with a massive proscenium stage, and even a classroom. Cost: $22 million, $40,000 of which will go to recruit students for the new dance major and hire instructors to teach them.

Bland Cafeteria: puzzling, since we already have three cafeterias, a café, a refectory, and two dining halls. But this is what the class of 1985 pooled its donations for: a 24/7 facility so that students pulling all-nighters need never go without munchies. Shaped like a giant pretzel and designed by the ecologically correct Swedish architectural firm ELOF, known for its innovative use of building materials, Bland will have its very walls made of hardened dough. “It is edible, theoretically,” says ELOF CEO Elof Elofsen, “and that is the point, yes?”