Television service for some students who live in AU’s block of the Berkshire Apartments will be restored in the next day or two after some students were left without service for weeks.
The problem started when AU asked the provider of cable TV in the Berks, MDU Communications Inc., for group billing when AU blocked a group of rooms to use as housing for students this year, said Chris Moody, executive director of Housing and Dining Programs.
Instead of providing Housing and Dining with one invoice for all the rooms, bills from a collection agency were sent to individual rooms. Since cable TV was included with the fees AU charged students to live in the Berks, the students did not pay the bills. As a result, television service started to be disconnected, Moody said.
MDU provides DirecTV service to apartment buildings like the Berks. A message left with the company Wednesday was not returned by press time.
Attempts by Housing and Dining to reach MDU have been similarly unsuccessful, Moody said.
By Monday, Housing and Dining contacted DirecTV and was informed that MDU acted against company policy by not giving a 30-day notice that service was to be disconnected.
“DirecTV is upset with MDU as well,” Moody said.
By Wednesday afternoon, the department began paying each bill on a university credit card, one-by-one, through DirecTV. Moody said TV service has been returning to the rooms as soon as each bill has been paid, and the process should be completed soon.
At that point, he said, Housing and Dining will resolve their outstanding billing issues with MDU.
Because the billing period begins when each room was connected to the MDU service, the disconnections have been gradual. Additionally, some students have not lost service, Moody said.
Students at the Berks have been informed and kept updated of the situation in multiple e-mails, Moody said.
Students have also approached the two community coordinators, Jake Meek and Imani Kane, whose jobs are similar to resident directors.
Alexis Pazmino, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, said she has been without TV service since Sept. 30.
“I called [Meek] — one of the Berks Community Coordinators — immediately when I realized my TV service was disconnected,” she wrote in an e-mail. “He seemed unnecessarily pithy with me on the phone when I brought my service outage to his attention.”
“I have missed some serious season premieres because of this outage,” she added.
Because there is no common space at the Berks, like hall lounges, students have had to either find an alternate location to watch television or have been forced to watch their favorite shows on Web sites like hulu.com, Moody said.
Even though Moody felt the situation is MDU’s fault, he hopes to make it up to those who were affected.
“Once we get cable back, we want to see if there’s anything we can do to compensate,” he said.
Pazmino said compensation like an enhanced cable package would be a good start, but also feels Housing and Dining needs to apologize for other problems that residents at the Berks have had.
“I think enhancing our package would be part of an appropriate apology,” she wrote. “The other part should come from Housing and Dining in a formal letter of apology in the way they have treated residents in the Berks.”
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6 Comments
AU Student
Oct 8 at 1:30 PM
I feel as if this article misses the point entirely. Instead of sampling an array of students living in the Berks, you are relying on a single irate students who probably emailed you to vent.
Yes, we all know about the TV situation and it sucks, but not everything is within the control of the university, especially when it comes to off-campus apartments for students who were too lazy to find housing on their own.
Mike Johnson
Oct 8 at 1:38 PM
@AU Student, everyone knows that Housing and Dining isn’t even remotely competent. They’re far to concerned with training RA’s to harass students to be bothered with actually providing the services they are paid for. It costs more per month to live in the dorms than to live in an apartment. Dorms- shared room smaller than some prison cells, bathroom shared with the entire floor. Apartment- own bedroom, maybe a shared bath with one other person. They those shitty little buildings cost more to live in per month than a decent apartment is beyond me. I suppose if they were bright enough to do something worthwhile they wouldn’t have gone to work for Housing and Dining.
to AU Student
Oct 8 at 7:40 PM
AU Student, perhaps before you post a response you should do some research to prevent yourself from seeming like an ignorant and uninformed student who has no knowledge of the situation.
I am one of the students who lives in the Berks through the deal offered by AU. And in fact, we were not “too lazy to find housing on our own”, but rather, we responded to an e-mail from housing and dining asking for students who were set to live in the dorms this year to consider moving to the apartments in order to provide more housing for our school’s biggest freshman class in history; who are required to live on campus. So your ignorance offends me.
Do some research because your post made you sound like that single irate student who you claim disdain for in your comment. And YOU missed the point entirely by not educating yourself on an issue which you seem so passionate about.
OWNED. get back at me.
this is hilarious
Oct 9 at 2:14 AM
So a student is without TV, not water, power or gas, for one week.
I’ve missed a couple of season premiers in my life and I’ve learned to cope with it.
BerksResident
Oct 10 at 7:42 PM
More than one student should definitely have been interviewed for this article. This seemed like a rather unintended accident, and truly not a big deal. FOR ONCE it seems like Chris Moody actually has his shit together for the most part. However the one student interviewed in this article seems like she has some other issues and is just using the interview as a chance to vent. Really, she missed some TV premieres? They’re all available online. Also referring to the community assistant as “pithy”? This girl needs a reality check. Dear Eagle writers, please up the journalistic standards and try to get multiple viewpoints next time. This would have been a very solid article if not for the single interviewee with such a slanted opinion.
AU Student
Oct 11 at 8:19 PM
I am not one to defend housing and dining in anyway. For ONCE it seems as if an outside actor is preventing these AU Students from getting their precious cable tv service.
And yes, you are too lazy to get your own housing unless you’re a transfer student. I have to question the intellect of someone who is paying the same to SHARE an apt with someone else when they could be paying the same or less for their own apt in the same building.
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