photo courtesy UDC

The UDC Firebirds are 9-1, with the only loss coming last month to D-1 and Atlantic 10 squad Duquesne.

It's not too early to start buzzing about a return to March mini-Madness: In 1982, UDC won a NCAA D-II national title with a team that was coached by Dunbar alum and local playground legend Willie Jones and featured a future NBA first round pick (Earl Jones of Spingarn) and a second-rounder (Michael Britt) on its roster.

UDC basketball had fallen a long, long way from those glories by the time Jeff Ruland arrived in 2009. The program had been hit with so many NCAA penalties, injuries, and transfers that the NBA veteran had trouble even fielding a full squad his first year as head coach.

I went to a UDC/Apprentice game in January 2010 and saw something that neither I nor Ruland nor, most likely, any of the other few dozen spectators in the UDC gym that day had ever seen outside of a pickup game: UDC played with only four guys.

The Firebirds had only five players eligible for the game, three of which were walk-ons, then lost a guard to injury in the first half. The squad spent the rest of the day playing four-on-five. The box-and-none defense was Ruland's only option. It was a hideous display.

UDC got crushed.

After the game, Ruland, a local favorite from his days as a Bruise Brother with Rick Mahorn and the Washington Bullets, told me the five guys who started "are all I got" for the rest of the season. The athletic department shipped a soccer player over to add a body. The team finished with a 1-20 record.

But this year, Ruland's got a quorum, and his roster is led by talent cast off from major basketball programs.

Nigel Munson, a former DeMatha star who played the 2006-2007 season at Virginia Tech and tried unsuccessfully to transfer to George Washington, is now a senior at UDC. He watched the infamous "Man down!" Apprentice game from the UDC bench, dressed in street clothes and with his broken arm in a cast.

The leading scorer is Brandon Herbert, a Baltimore product who left the troubled Binghamton University program in 2009 and was at West Chester for a time before joining Ruland at the Van Ness campus.

UDC hits the court again on December 30 at 2 pm at home against Dominican College.

Another sign of progress: Admission to the Dominican game, which was free back when the Firebirds were playing four guys at a time, will cost you $5.

Programmers and management still remain in a face-off following last night's lengthy and emotional meeting of WPFW's listener-elected Local Station Board. But the future of the "Jazz and Justice" community radio station is now a lot more secure, at least physically: General Manager John Hughes told the assembly that the station may soon close an agreement to move to the University of the District of Columbia.

WPFW is currently located in the same building as Washington City Paper—a structure in Adams Morgan that will be demolished next year to make way for a hotel. Among many grievances outlined in a declaration of no confidence, the mostly volunteer programmers accused Hughes of failing to address the station's imminent need to move.

Hughes told the meeting that 'PFW and UDC are discussing a space at the university's Van Ness campus that would include enough room for lectures, meetings, and concerts; he also said some kind of marketing and branding partnership is on the table. He said the station is discussing a five-year lease. It recently renewed its FCC license for another eight years.

Nothing is set in stone just yet, says Arlene Englehardt, the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which owns WPFW: "We have a proposal from them and we’re talking to them." Englehardt will be in town later this month to meet with UDC administrators, she says.

Tony Norman, the chair of the Local Station Board, says WPFW could benefit from ties to an educational institution, although he stressed that there would be a "firewall" protecting the independence of the station's coverage: "This will be strictly a landlord/tenant relationship, primarily."

"All I can tell you is I’m aware that discussions are being held about this possibility, but nothing firm has been agreed to yet," Alan Etter, UDC's spokesperson, says by email.

The university hasn't had a radio station on its property since the late 1990s, when its trustees sold the jazz-focused WDCU to CSPAN Radio for $21 million.

Following Hughes' remarks and a question-and-answer session last night, the Local Station Board went to a closed session, where it agreed to proceed with mediation between the aggrieved programmers and management. Those talks could happen as soon as next week, Norman said.

Public Transit Turned Public Restroom: The Metro is good for a lot of things—getting around town, mysteriously stopping underground for a while, finding new and exciting ways to be annoyed by tourists. And now, apparently, also defecation. A rider found a pile of human shit on a pedestrian bridge between the Metro and VRE stations at the Springfield stop on the Blue Line yesterday. Both transit systems insisted it was the other's problem. Which, to be honest, is probably what we'd do rather than clean it up, too. But still. -3

The Tuition Is Too Damn High: Just how much are people willing to pay to go to college in D.C.? More than almost anywhere else in the country, apparently. George Washington University ranked in the top eight most expensive universities in the latest Education Department rankings of cost, with tuition of nearly $42,000 a year. The University of the District of Columbia, though, was a relative bargain, at only $3,000 a year. We're off to go buy lottery tickets to put away for tuition for future children now. -2

Comedy As Policy (Or Is It Policy As Comedy?): The Supreme Court almost appeared to be joking last year when it overturned a ban on direct spending by corporations in political campaigns—surely there was a punch line coming, and not just more power for massive conglomerates, right? The punch line arrived today, in the form of Stephen Colbert, as it so often does in politics these days. Colbert visited the Federal Election Commission, which ruled that—in keeping with the Citizens United v. FEC ruling—he can, indeed, form a "superPAC" to spend corporate money on behalf of candidates (and satirize the Citizens United decision, which seems to be his main goal). A crowd gathered outside to throw money at him. You people know he's "paid handsomely," and doesn't really need your money, right? +1

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word: Commuting delays happen so frequently these days that they're not, in and of themselves, news. Metro's response to Green Line problems this morning, though, was. The transit system apologized to riders inconvenienced by single-tracking, caused by a maintenance accident near Fort Totten. No word on what delays were caused by the need to provide medical attention to shocked commuters. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 46 Today's score: -3 Today's Needle rating: 43

Mayor Who?: Challenging electoral petitions is always a nasty business, since the whole point of the exercise is to keep potential competitors off the ballot—lest they get more votes than you. But even by the usual standards, Sekou Biddle's challenges against various D.C. Council at-large candidates look like they could get ugly. Biddle is challenging whether election officials should count the signatures of Maria Cardona (candidate Bryan Weaver's wife), former Mayors Tony Williams and Adrian Fenty, D.C. Councilmembers Jim Graham and Phil Mendelson, and Council Chairman Kwame Brown's brother. Politics really is war by other means. -1

Cherry Blossom Bomb: Forget global warming; at this point, the biggest threat to D.C.'s annual Cherry Blossom Festival may be miscommunication. Reports ran rampant today that the festival would cost money. Yes, that's true—sort of. The Sakura Matsuri Japanese cultural fair will charge $5 to get in this year, for the first time ever. But the usual "walk around the Tidal Basin looking at the pretty trees" part of the season will remain free. +1

College Debt: $8,000 one-way tickets to Egypt aren't the only perk you get for being president of the University of the District of Columbia, after all. Another scoop out of Fox 5 reveals that UDC boss Allen Sessoms, already under fire for expensive travel, also got a $60,000 "car allowance" from the school, which he used to buy a Lincoln Navigator. Because, apparently, anyone who lives in D.C. who's being criticized for spending too much money is required to drive a Lincoln Navigator. -2

More Cupcakes: Yet another cupcake shop will soon open in D.C. This should be bad for D.C. quality of life, but at this point, we're experiencing a sort of Stockholm Syndrome toward the sugary beasts. Also, the arrival of more cupcake purveyors just puts the city that much closer to the inevitable moment when the population revolts, en masse, against the snacks. Heighten the contradictions! And the calorie counts. +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 29 Today's score: +1 Today's Needle rating: 30

Fraidin testified before the D.C. Council about his findings on Nov. 8 [PDF]. While much if not all of the debate over homeless services has concerned Wells' residency-requirement bill, which is slated for a vote today, the shelter's cruddy, crowded conditions have not gone away. Wells told the Washington Post recently that the D.C. General campus has become a dumping ground.

Fraidin says that after making those 10 visits this past summer, he has come to the conclusion that the city should stop putting families in D.C. General. "There are significant concerns that relate to food, health, safety, privacy and social development. A good communal shelter is a bad place for kids. This particular institution has significant problems," he says in an interview with City Desk.

Fraidin revealed his findings during the November hearing. He stated:

For example, a 10-year old boy, who said he likes school and that his favorite subject is math, expressed worry that there is no place for him to do his homework at D.C. General.  The same little boy said he can’t have his school friends over, because he lives in the shelter, and can’t play with other children who live in the shelter because they always have to be quiet and are not allowed to visit in each other’s rooms.

The mother of two girls said “all of the kids who live here are afraid, and they are suffering.  They have to be quiet all the time, they can’t play in the hallways, but it is not safe to play outside with all the smoking and drinking and prison discharges going on.”

Children and parents pointed out that because there is no outdoor play area, outside play is limited to bare dirt and gravel.

And here's more from Fraidin:

Another parent said “it would be better if they had at least one bathtub on each floor for children that are not old enough to get in the shower.  Right now, residents must wash younger children in the bathroom sinks.”

Many residents said they simply cannot eat the food provided at the shelter.  One woman said she and her daughters all got food poisoning during the first week they lived there.

Many children are kept in the rooms to avoid residents who are smoking, drinking, cursing, fighting, and using drugs.

Numerous people confirmed that elevators are frequently out of service.  One woman told me that she carried her baby – in his stroller — up five flights of stairs.  Her friend said “It’s lucky I was there that time, so I could carry her groceries for her.”  Another woman said a mother and child had been caught in a broken elevator for 30 or 45 minutes.

The mother of three little children said the shelter has mice, flies, and scabies, even though she is “always cleaning.”  Another mother said her “one-year old baby’s hand was caught in a snap trap.”

In one interview, I learned that a family had been separated due to conditions at the shelter.  The heat in the shelter was so severe that one woman brought her child to a grandmother’s house, where the child had been living without her mother.

Scabies? Food poisoning? Broken elevators? Fraidin concluded his testimony with a critique of Wells' homeless legislation. The bill would relax restrictions on the types of shelter options for homeless families. In other words, it could produce more D.C. Generals. Fraidin testified:

Budget pressures are hard to resist in these times. The voices of children and parents at D.C. General, however, make it clear that removing the apartment-style requirement will harm children.  We know that insufficient attention to children’s needs actually costs money in the long run, while costing the children a chance at a productive and happy life.  Many policy questions are susceptible of multiple understandings and a range of reasonable choices.  On this one, however, there is no way to argue that more communal care will be good for children.  The children and parents whom we met speak with one voice, which says that we should move toward closing D.C. General, rather than housing more and more children in institutions.

In the past two years, two infants died at D.C. General. Last year, it became known for its mismanagement and rough conditions (no air condition on certain floors, peeling paint, mold, and food that caused some kids to have to go to a working hospital). On April 2, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the shelter's management would be fired.

After months of ruckus, neighbors aiming to block the Stadium Club’s liquor license renewal sure made a lousy case at Wednesday’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC) hearing.

In June, residents in the Ward 5 neighborhoods abutting the club-cum-steakhouse submitted two petitions, one with five signatures and another with 21, arguing the establishment was disrupting peace, quiet and public safety. The club had previously been located at 900 First Street SE, but moved when the city declared eminent domain to make room for the new ballpark. It opened at its new digs on Queens Chapel Road in April.

But when the club's license renewal application came up this week, only one resident showed up to declare it unwelcome: Lauren Wallace, a U.D.C. law student and local who'd signed the five-signature petition. The second, 21-neighbor group had apparently dropped out. “This case is not about nude dancing being a bad thing in D.C., [but] whether or not it’s appropriate for a nude dancing establishment to be in a residential neighborhood,” Wallace said.

Stadium Club co-manager Keith Forney testified on the club's behalf, accompanied by lawyer Stephen O'Brien and an entourage of witnesses. The club noted that it occupies two lots alongside warehouses for a meat company and a waste-management firm, well away from delicate neighbors.

Wallace, on the other hand, had just one witness, D.C. resident and fellow U.D.C. law student Benjamin Petok, who was at the club on the evening of June 16^th, when a homeless man slashed a valet attendant with a broken bottle. As a result, Petok was unable to exit the premises around midnight. MPD apprehended the man, who was not a patron. Mayhem!

How common are such incidents? An Alcoholic Beverage Regulatory Administration (ABRA) investigator, Jabriel Shakoor, followed hearing custom to detail recent calls to police about the venue. Since May, the calls have included reports of: a simple assault, an assault with a deadly weapon, disorderly conduct, and a theft. Shakoor said that over the course of several visits, he also witnessed couples, friends and larger parties eating at the restaurant portion of the establishment.

Unfortunately for club foes, he did not cite any liquor-law violations.

Alas, once Wallace took over cross-examination, the line of questioning lost direction.

“Is it true that vaginas are shown?” she asked.

“They are nude, in that vaginas can be seen…,” Forney replied.

Things got worse for the protestants. Petok, who’d never been in the neighborhood before his trip to the club, revealed that he was asked to visit by a fellow student, Don Padou, who reimbursed him $325 for the night, covering admission and drinks. Padou, a Ward 5 resident, was another member of Wallace's group of five petitioners. He was not present at the hearing.

On the stand, Petok described his night at the strip joint: dancers working on two stages, clothed at first but eventually–wait for it–stripping nude. He said he bought a few dancers drinks and witnessed customers consume alcohol on the outdoors patio. Both of which are against club policy.

Petok also claimed to have seen things that almost violated city strip-club regs against touching and lap dances.

“I suppose you could avoid touching the dancers, but I think there’s incidental contact,” he said, noting patrons tipped dancers on stage. “Some women would touch their breasts, genital and buttocks.”

And near the end of the night–five hours in–Petok paid $100 for 10-minutes in a private room with a dancer–his car was blocked, what else was he to do? The experience was “essentially a lap dance, where she, naked, would grind her exposed body up against my clothed body,” he said.

Such testimony might have been damning–notwithstanding the use of mitigating words like "incidental" and "essentially"–but for one pesky problem: Liquor license hearings aren't the place to hash out strip-club rules.

After about 90 minutes, ABC Board Chairman Charles Brodsky ran out of patience when Wallace refused to let her witness answer club attorney O'Brien's question: "How did what you observed in the Stadium Club that night, impact peace, order, and quiet outside of the club?"

Petok, Wallace said, was there only to state facts and not his own opinions.

“The basis of this protest is peace, order, and quiet…the only witness put on by the protestant group…is a guy that can’t make any claims to peace, order, and quiet,” Brodsky replied. “So, why in God’s name did they bring you? I don’t understand.”

If the club is violating its own stripper-behavior, and the city's, residents can't trust them to maintain order outside their establishment, Wallace explained.

“I’m not really interested in your theoretical reasoning…claims by a paid person…that goes inside this establishment to find something that goes on inside, that has no impact on the outside,” Brodsky said.

At this point, Petok piped up. He was merely visiting the strip club as a favor for a friend, he said.

“You were paid,” Brodsky shot back.

“It was a zero sum for me,” Petok replied.

“That’s like being a little bit pregnant,” Brodsky said.

On the other hand, the law student did say one good thing about his visit: “I certainly didn’t observe prostitution.”

The ABC Board did not immediately vote on the club. A decision is due soon.

For more Stadium Club content, check out the review by City Paper's own Tim Carman of the club's walled-off, no-cover-charge restaurant section. For the record, vaginas could be seen there, too, but not very easily. The review focused instead on chef Andre Miller's wallet-emptying steak.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Van Ness might as well be Bahrain
Some students will soon ride the train
They may come across
A lost albatross
Or hawk or a pigeon or crane

WaPo's Bill Turque reported earlier this month that students at Wilson Senior High School would have to relocate while the city renovated their historic Tenleytown campus, and that the University of the District of Columbia would be a likely spot for their interlude.

Well, it's now official: Wilson principal Pete Cahall informed parents today in an e-mail that the kids will be housed in UDC's Building 52 next school year while the renovations at Wilson proceed. A groundbreaking, in fact, is scheduled for tomorrow.

The building, on the southwest corner of Connecticut Avenue and Yuma Street NW, is currently undergoing renovation to serve as UDC's business school, says university spokesperson Alan Etter. It's also planned to serve as the university's student center.

One political sidenote that LL will point out: That DCPS and UDC were able to come to an understanding, with UDC willing to delay the opening of its business school, might very well mark a thaw in relations between the Fenty administration and UDC—an institution Fenty has clashed with and made repeated attempts to assert more control over.

The university has been working closely with Allen Lew's school facilities shop on the deal, Etter says. DCPS is taking advantage of already-planned UDC-funded renovations at the building, but if any Wilson-specific changes need to be made, DCPS will foot the bill. "There's been a great working relationship," Etter says.

Despite the fact that work is proceeding post-haste—some Wilson classrooms will be closed next semester as the project begins, forcing students into temporary spaces—Turque noted that controversy persists over the plans for the Wilson reno.

Here's Cahall's note:

Good evening, Wilson Parents and Students...this is Principal Cahall calling with my weekly update.

I am pleased to announce that we will relocate our school to the University of the District of Columbia's campus for the 2010-2011 school year. We will be housed in Building 52, a five story building on Connecticut Avenue. The building is currently gutted and work will begin immediately preparing the space for our arrival in August 2010.

Our ground breaking ceremony will be on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 and work will begin at Wilson after the winter break. When school resumes on January 4, we no longer have access to the auditorium wing of the building including the rose garden. Classrooms are being constructed in the armory and displaced classrooms from the auditorium will be located there.

We will need your continued support and assistance as we work through this process. We need to keep the end in mind which will be a full modernized and state of the art school when we return in 2011.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The onetime Bruise Brother was named head coach of the University of the District of Columbia. Ruland gets the UDC job after getting canned as an assistant by new '76ers coach Eddie Jordan.

Ruland played the moody lug to Rick Mahorn's gregarious lug when the two of them lugged up the lane for the Washington Bullets of the 1980s. He and Mahorn were famously dubbed "McFilthy & McNasty" by the greatest play-by-play announcer ever, the Celtics' Johnny Most.

At UDC, Ruland takes over a program that hasn't been good since his earliest days as a Bullet. Given the way college basketball and recruiting have changed in the years since, there's no way that Ruland can bring UDC back to the heights it reached back in the early 1980s. The Firebirds won an NCAA Division II national championship in 1981 with a squad that featured two high NBA draft picks: First-rounder Earl Jones, who went to the L.A. Lakers, and Michael Britt, a second-round pick of the Washington Bullets in 1983. D-II ballplayers don't get drafted anymore.

Mahorn's also a coach, and he's still getting in trouble for shoving people around on the court these days.

Only now, he shoves women.

He's head coach of the Detroit Shock, and last year, when he was an assistant under seminal NBA thug Bill Laimbeer, Mahorn got a little too involved in a bench-clearing brawl between his team and the L.A. Sparks.

Mahorn said he pushed Sparks star Lisa Leslie to the ground while acting as "peacemaker," but he got suspended anyway.

***

Duke basketballer Greg Paulus was just named the starting quarterback at Syracuse.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Adrian Dantley's son bumped for Paulus? How do you sell parking for Redskins games without ever saying "Redskins"? Is taping guys to goal posts still giggly? Does anybody really think Cora Masters Barry is a victim?)

This odd turn of events — Paulus already graduated from Duke and used up his basketball eligibility there, but weird NCAA rules allow one extra season in another sport for folks in grad school — puts one of our own, Cam Dantley, deeper on the bench.

Dantley, who grew up in Silver Spring and went to St. Alban's, is the son of local hero and basketball Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley. Cam Dantley was the Syracuse starting QB last season.

***

If you don't think Dan Snyder plays hardball with the competition, take a look at the web site for the FanZone, which sells parking passes for Redskins games for an independently operated lot located near FedExField.

Nowhere on the site will you find either "FedExField" or "Redskins." Guess they're afraid of Snyder's lawyers.

The FanZone pass for its Redskins lot is $300, which is $50 cheaper than Snyder's cheapest.

***

It's hazing season at Redskins Park. These sort of towel-snapping tales sound charming and funny when you hear retired players or old veterans talking about what happened to them when they were rookies.

But silliness among grown-ups, even grown-ups who play a game for a living, doesn't wear as well when there are photos. Especially two days in a row of the same silliness from the same group of grown-ups.

When Matt Terl wrote a lighthearted piece about the first day of goalpost taping on Dan Snyder's official Redskins blog, a lot of the commenters started railing against the team for fiddling while Rome is burning.

"It seems like coach Zorn is running camp snoopy in VA," wrote one.

There's plenty of visual evidence to back up that charge.

***

Speaking of Camp Snoopy: The eviction saga of Cora Masters Barry goes on.

I hope when all this is done somebody can explain what really goes on at her tennis center.

It's an odd set up she's set up. The facility is owned by the city, but in many ways it's controlled by her, and she's not an employee of the DC government.

I once called the communications office of the Department of Parks and Recreation, while I was doing a story on all the money she stole from DC back when she was a boxing commissioner named Cora Wilds, and asked who in our government she reports to, since she's in control of such a valuable piece of public property and, well, she does have a history of misusing the people's resources. (Nobody old enough to remember her total disregard for laws and regulations as boxing commissioner can take Masters Barry's claims of victimhood seriously here.)

A Parks and Rec spokesman told me he'd get back to me, and two days later, he got back with the answer: "Nobody."

Cora Masters Barry answers to nobody?

"Nobody."

What a city!

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

"A six-car Red Line train headed toward Shady Grove was pulling into the station around 12:30 p.m. when witnesses report the man intentionally placed himself on the tracks.   Emergency crews responded to the scene and removed the man from underneath the first rail car of the train. The man was transported to a local hospital."

Single-tracking is in affect between Friendship Heights and Cleveland Park so expect to wait for trains.  Nothing like a delayed Metro to kick off the weekend rush-hour!

*PRETTY SOON THEY MIGHT START REPRODUCING: After victories in Iowa and Vermont, "[gay] momentum...could spill into other states," the New York Times speculates.  Closer to home, the D.C. Council voted resoundingly to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.  Jason Cherkis has some comments on that, as well as some intriguing internal polling, here.

*Marc Fisher wants U.D.C. to "raise its game" by adopting University President Allen Sessoms' proposal to bifurcating the university into a two-year community college alongside a reinvigorated, competitive four-year college:

For too long, UDC has been a high school–even a middle school–in disguise, with college professors scrambling to teach basic algebra and even some arithmetic, as well as reading comprehension and other foundational lessons to students who were simply passed through the D.C. public schools.

Would such a reorg mean even more hikes for the four-years set? No word yet.

* D.C. Police report that James Duncan of the 2200 block of Sherman Ave. NW is missing:

Mr. Duncan was last seen at approximately 4:00 pm, on Thursday, March 26, 2009 in the 2200 block of Sherman Avenue, NW. Mr. Duncan is described as a dark complexioned black male, 5’6” tall, weighing approximately 180 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.

*The Washinton Times blushes to report that "hundreds of students" gathered for a screening of Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge in UMD College Park's Susquehanna Hall on Monday, defying squeamish Maryland lawmakers who'd threatened to withdraw $424 million in state funding.  Students defended the screening, citing the film's "educational" content and the fact that Stagnetti really got a bum deal the first time around.

*Prince of Petworth just really liked this sky.

Photograph above: "Tehran Sky" by Hamed Saber

Of the board's 14 members, 10 voted in favor. Three members—Verizon exec Joseph Askew, alumni representative Eugene Dewitt Kinlow, and student representative Dale Lyons—voted against. One member was absent.

UDC President Allen Sessoms said afterward he is gratified by the vote and by the discussion and debate that accompanied it: "UDC has not had a truthful, in-depth discussion of where this university is going."

The next step, he says, is moving forward with measures to expand the university's autonomy from the District government, allowing it greater freedom to manage its own affairs. "We want to be accountable," he says. "We don't have accountability right now."

Board chair Jim Dyke says that lessons were learned from the uproar that accompanied the tuition-hike proposal. A task force on communications, he says, has been established to combat what he calls the "misinformation" that went out to students about the tuition hike.

Despite all that, he says, "I think the students conducted themselves very well."

Sounds shocking, but a few things don't get mentioned, or get mentioned very briefly, in most press accounts.

First off, UDC has never made a very good distinction between its two-year community college and workforce development programs and its four-year baccalaureate degree-granting programs. The tuition hike is part of a plan to improve that situation. Second, this tuition hikes would only affect the four-year students. Under the new plan, students enrolled in two-year, community college classes would pay the old rate—$3,000.

While it's noble to speak of UDC's mission as providing a "quality and affordable education for residents of the District of Columbia"—as UDC student Joshua Lopez told WaPo this week—it's very hard to argue is that all its students are getting a quality education now. And $7,000 in-state yearly for a college degree still qualifies as affordable, compared to other state universities in this part of the country.

LL sees the facts this way: UDC has continually underwhelmed throughout its 35-year history, in no small part because of money. It's done only token, if any, private fundraising, it's never managed its budget well, and, especially, during the control board era, it's never been given the operating subsidy it needs.

Now UDC's programs and reputation aren't going to improve immediately, and students may not decide that $7,000 for a UDC education is worth it. But students can vote with their feet: Thanks to the federally funded Tuition Assistance Grants, D.C. residents can attend any public university at in-state prices. Or they can remain in community college programs.

UDC President Allen Sessoms doesn't expect that to happen, though. In an interview with LL earlier this month, he said, thanks to the economy and changes in programs, he expected UDC's enrollment to rise from about 5,500 this year to about 7,000—4,000 in four-year degree programs, the rest in community college classes.

Lest LL open himself up for ad hominem attacks, some full disclosure here—LL attended a very expensive private university, financed largely by his parents' savings. So he probably isn't the guy to stand up and say to UDC students: Hey, you need to take on a whole bunch more debt!

But the reality is that the status quo can't support making UDC what it needs to be. The alumni and other private support isn't there; the governmental support certainly isn't going to improve anytime soon, so if UDC is ever going to improve, things have to start with tuition.