I love being a Golden Grizzly, and I love being a student at Oakland University. The experiences and memories I have accumulated over these last three years here have been monumental to my development as a person and as a journalist. But even I — who bleeds black and gold — have some choice words for the fall 2025 semester.
I love OU, but this is tough love. Let’s talk about it.
Four key issues plagued this semester at OU. These issues will encompass topics surrounding the university as a whole.
The dripping tap
First, the biggest obstacle that is curtailing students, faculty, staff and members of the community is the pipe leak issue.
The high temperature hot water (HTHW) pipe leak has been detrimental to OU. It has been an unmitigated disaster that has permeated all forms of education, student life and workplace on campus. It’s frankly embarrassing.
It’s embarrassing how we got to this point. It’s embarrassing that a Division One, publicly lauded, award-winning, grant-magnet, culturally diverse, equitable and prestigious university got to this point.
In August of 2020, the Board of Trustees (BOT) approved a 5 million project to replace a portion of the HTHW pipe after it was discovered that there was — you guessed it — a leak. In just five short years, another leak has come up. Same pipe, same system.
It seems that no matter how much money the BOT tries to extract and suck from the students who pay tuition — as well as the surrounding residents — the mechanical blowback arrives all the same.
This pipe issue is here, once again. It also seems like it is staying for a while.
The university initially thought the repairs would take only ten days. In fact, through the official Campus Communication email, it only took five — half the time allotted — to report that the repairs were successful.
They passed inspection, but accordingly, due to a combination of bad luck and Mother Nature herself. The pipe started to leak, once again.
Everyone is pissed.
Students are pissed, faculty are pissed, staff are pissed, food service workers — who will not be getting paid over the closure and most likely for the rest of the calendar year — are all really pissed off right now.
Faculty have either had to move classes online, some have had to cancel exams and in-person projects, others, such as the School of Music, Theatre and Dance (SMTD) faculty, are moving their performances and recitals off-campus — everything is thrown off by this one mistake that keeps coming back to haunt the BOT and OU.
After the 44.2 million dollar investment that paid off in 2024, with the renovation of South Foundation Hall, it’s not absurd to suggest that the university has money to spend.
The issue is how this university spends its money and what it chooses as wise investments.
This brings us to issue number two.
Infest the rats nest
In November of 2025, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer to the BOT, Stephen Mackey, made his way down to The Ambassador room in the Oakland Center. There, he got up on the podium and, along with the Executive Director for Finance and Administration, Penny Vigneau, they plainly stated that the motivation for the OU data center project was: a lack of money (slide two).
The reason given for why this was suddenly an issue is due to the enrollment figures, trends and perceived plateaus over the next decade. Along with the potential good press given to a school with “one of the first sustainable University Data Centers in the country.”
This is absolutely a lofty goal. The promise to the community that a data center will be sustainable, environmentally friendly, all while creating plentiful opportunities for the OU community, is bold.
Data centers are costly. Not just to build, but to maintain, to supply water to, to manage electricity and energy for — there are a plethora of issues with data centers that this Op-Ed will not even touch.
Back to the meeting with Mackey and Vigneau. They both attended this meeting, with the express intent of trying to convince members of Oakland University Student Congress (OUSC) that this data center plan is not set in stone.
They consistently repeated the fact that they were still in the “pre-development” or “due diligence” phase of the project. This is where they weigh environmental factors, assess the planned development site (P-35), align with OU’s sustainability promise by conducting “heat recapture” studies and begin their campus engagement.
Needless to say, the campus has not been engaged.
Saying that OUSC was skeptical was an understatement. Some might even say they were hostile to the idea that a data center was planned to be built on their campus, right next to the Native American Heritage site near P-35, no less.
They brought up every possible concern that they could with Mackey and Vigneau: environmental, sustainability, energy, millage, economic impact, job creation, opportunity creation. Mackey and Vigneau, through their professional and corporate demeanor, showed a lack of understanding and nuance with OUSC.
Not to mention, their continued talking point of “due diligence” is immediately brought into question and squashed by the fact that if they do not hit any hiccups, they’ll have this project up and under construction by the end of 2026 (slide ten).
The blatant disregard for the student body was not only felt in dealing with the pipe — but with the proposed data center as well.
This goes much further than one would ever have hoped it would. The leak is not just passing through the administration and the BOT, but it is permeating the very substantial services that students rely on.
This brings us to issue three.
Phantom Island
Food and shelter — two of the key needs of humans to survive. If either of those needs is neglected, then the body cannot function.
This is true for students, because students are also human — people tend to forget this fact.
As such, students deserve to have everything that they need in order to be successful. This does not mean: vacating and pushing students out of residence halls right before Thanksgiving.
Many of these students who live in Vandenberg, Hamlin and Van Wagoner Hall are international students or students who cannot return home on such short notice. Queer students also live in these dorms — some of them do not have safe homes to return to.
Oakland University did the bare minimum by placing the least fortunate of these examples of students in temporary residence, either in student apartments or non-affected dorms like Hillcrest.
However, the lack of planning permeates through the barrier once again. This hits our most vulnerable students and it is unacceptable that the university even got to this point.
In keeping with the theme of the rest of the year, due to the heating shortage, Vandenberg Dining Hall is now closed for the entirety of the campus closure.
In 2023, Hillcrest Hall closed its regular dining hall hours, instead opting for mobile-exclusive ordering options. Two years later, Vandenberg Dining Hall is now closed for its regular weekend hours, in lieu of extended hours at the Pioneer Food Court.
The money is there, we know it is. The simple solution is to pay workers more — or just hire more employees. Dining halls like these are essential and it is a stain on this university’s reputation as a “first-choice” school to be treating the students like their needs simply do not matter.
I understand that being the Editor in Chief for The Oakland Post is a privilege. It is also a responsibility. It was a responsibility I have never, ever taken lightly as both a journalist and as a student. Newspapers — especially those run by students — have been bastions of free speech and free expression for decades.
I understand that I am privileged to have been guided by my peers and faculty — many of whom I call my best friends — to uplift student voices on campus.
Free speech, as we know it on OU’s campus, has been called into question in the fall semester of 2025.
My final point.
I’m in your mind
Public Forum Zones on this campus are disgraceful. The idea of having free speech (protests, grievances, petitions) being relegated to a specific area and under scrutiny from a public university is despicable.
In order to reliably follow the guidelines of the Oakland Center’s reservation policy, one must jump through several hoops in order to publicly express oneself.
There’s a caveat: this is all optional.
There’s nothing really to say here. Spending money to put up signs around the OC, quietly at that, and to specifically ask people to follow the rules and have their freedom of speech be approved is dumbfounding.
There has been a lot on my mind as of late. I’ve been trying to connect the dots on why this semester has been off. This is the last piece of the grand, ubiquitous puzzle.
These signs that designate the Public Forum Zones were noticed on campus the last week of October, over a whole month since the vigil held for the late conservative activist, Charlie Kirk, was held on campus in mid-September.
The vigil attracted over 1,000 students and visitors to Elliott Tower. They upheld their beliefs — but most importantly, they were given permission to be there.
OU students protested this vigil, directly outside the event, as well as with a separate event afterwards. Both are free and protected forms of speech.
My point with all of this is that after these events took place, these pseudo-requirements were put in place. It is a dangerous precedent to set — I’m not here for it.
How did this happen — what now?
This is my last Op-Ed. My last letter from the editor. In total, I’ve published 5, including the one that you are reading now.
My time at the post has been nothing if not eventful. I’ve outlined my gripes with OU in this letter;, however, I am still eternally grateful for my time here and the friends I have made along the way.
Like I said before, running The Oakland Post is a privilege. It’s also a lot of hard work.
I have cherished and am currently cherishing every moment of it. Even the crazy ones.
Be grateful for the opportunities you have at OU, but also, be skeptical — ask tough questions.
Be curious, be bold, be golden.
With all my gratitude,
-Chelsea Bossert, EIC of The Oakland Post