Two years and $60 million in the making, the Estancia La Jolla Spa and Hotel is a marvel of modern luxury. With its exclusive beauty treatments, cushy accommodations, and proximity to Torrey Pines Golf Course, the Estancia is a perfect getaway for the man on the go with money to burn. It also happens to be built on land belonging to a public university.

With mounting concerns over California’s budget crisis and the University of California’s spectacular failure managing Los Alamos National Laboratory, the problem of finding other sources of income for the university has become more and more of a problem in recent years. To solve this problem, the university decided to develop a “Conference Center Hotel Complex” on a parcel of their land jutting out toward the coastline just east of Eleanor Roosevelt College.

As far as money is concerned, the university should not run into any problems: it gets approximately an 8.5% cut of the profits from the luxurious facials and $200-per-night hotel rooms at the complex, estimated to be along the lines of $600,000 per year. This seems like sound financial judgment, until you compare it to the millions of dollars received by legitimate university research operations. On the land now occupied by debutantes, a decent-sized science or engineering complex could be erected, similar to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. That’s not to say that a new science and engineering facility is the best choice for UCSD’s traditionally unbalanced curriculum, but it sure makes a lot more financial sense than a hotel, especially considering that Jacobs School of Engineering pulled in a cool $110 million in donations and grants last year.

Yet even if you neglect this gross financial blunder, there is a greater issue at stake here for the future of the University of California. Whose university is this? UCSD was originally conceived and funded as a service to the taxpayers of California to educate their children, but that of course went right out the window in favor of a research-oriented philosophy training the technicians of the future to work for the university’s current sponsors. In terms of undergraduate student experience, this is barely admissible considering the wealth of experience aspiring scientists can glean while keeping such close ties to industry. Of course, this “hard research” philosophy doesn’t do our humanities programs any favors.

Yet what happens when even research is pushed aside for crude financial goals? What message is UCSD sending to its faculty and students when precious parking space and student gathering places are razed to make way for new research buildings, yet the “untouched” land is saved for a luxury resort? What priorities are UCSD officials prescribing to when said hotel is handed a no-questions-asked 65-year lease, while students and faculty are forced to viciously fight every three months over a small number of lecture spaces? UCSD tends to concentrate on short lengths of time, such as the extra lecture time which can be squeezed into a day by shortening passing periods to ten minutes in 2002. Or by denying some of the most talented professors at this university tenure so that they may be fired at will. You know, short-term concerns.

But even if UCSD faculty are somewhat slighted by the Estancia, students by far bear the brunt of the damage. For after all, the students are the ones who support a university whose funds and resources are going to a service they cannot use. To be fair, UCSD students also support many other services they cannot use, including benefits for UCSD staff and philanthropy, but funding an operation to give five separate types of “botanical body treatments” to those willing to pay does not fall into either of these categories.

The most insulting part of the entire affair is that the university is making a considerable effort to publicize this bloated resort as a positive asset to the UCSD community.

To its merit, the Estancia at least attempts to follow the initial design plan of a “Conference Center Hotel Complex” with a variety of meeting spaces similar to those found in Price Center or the chancellor’s private compound (perhaps the Estancia is better suited for university sponsors). But in all other aspects, the publicity seems slightly skewed.

For instance, the Estancia has even agreed, in a gracious gesture of immense proportions, to offer UCSD staff a special rate of “$75 off” for the remaining three days of September. Check with a booking agent for details, some restrictions may apply. Students, of course, still pay the full $200 for a room for September and all dates that follow.

But, to make up for this slight against UCSD students, the Estancia is willing to employ students in a variety of entry-level jobs, mostly of the “courtesy clerk” (door opener) or “janitorial engineer” (mop man) variety.

So, University of California, it is now up to you. You still own the land; get out of this terrible situation while you still can. It’s not a complete loss. The existing facility can be used as graduate or faculty housing, a welcome change from the 1960s relics in La Jolla International Gardens. With a few modifications, the heated pool could become a fantastic chemistry/biology lab complex (don’t forget to disconnect the chlorine!). With the parking crunch in full force, the resort’s parking facilities would practically pay for themselves.

If we all pitch in, the UCSD community can cure the blight in our midst that is the Estancia La Jolla Resort and Spa. But it’s not going to be easy.