The one thing that is hard to miss on campus recently is the constant construction. It is everywhere from the Ferguson Center all the way to the Highlands. I am also pretty sure they have been working on Shelby Hall since I arrived to the University as a freshman. Our campus is constantly evolving and becoming bigger and bigger, but is there a point where it will all just stop, so we as students can actually admire our beautiful campus as it stands?
The construction has reached the point of excess. Every semester a new project is getting started before the previous one is complete. Many argue that most expansions are for the benefit of the University, but progress is a process and does not need to be this rapid. Building structures like Legos isn’t going to help the University if it has to be rebuilt in four or five years.
Expanding the University adds to the already huge parking problem and causes an inconvenience for students by blocking roads to campus that are already full of one-way streets. If the projects were planned far apart from each other, it would minimize the inconvenience they cause to students. This isn’t an argument against expansion but an argument for better planning.
I do not have my degree yet, and I will admit I know the last thing about what goes into construction; however, I am a student and am friends with other students on this campus. I hear the constant griping about parking and roads being blocked and how poorly some of the structure of the buildings is. As students, our tuition funds some of the expansion of the campus along with grants and other factors, but without students, the University would not be as great as it is. This being said, students should be taken into consideration before we just decide to break ground.
The building of dorms and other housing structures usually come with our ever-growing student population, but instead of building a new dormitory every time freshmen are accepted; the University should become more strict on admission practices. A suggestion would be raising the SAT/ACT score or adding an essay to the application. This would decrease the number of freshmen accepted, tailoring it to the amount of space on campus. It could also help some upperclassman have a better chance of staying on campus a little longer, rather than being kicked off after their first year.
As stated previously, I am not against expansion. A growing campus is a good thing and contributes to the attractiveness of our campus, but it would be nice to go one semester without having to reroute my way to campus or deal with fewer parking spaces, which adds to the increase of the overall price of a parking permit. The administration is so focused on being the best and the biggest that it is losing sight of what would be efficient and cause less of a inconvenience to what keeps the University afloat: the students.
Amber Patterson is a sophomore majoring in public relations.
