With double-digit construction projects scheduled to happen around campus this summer, we need to keep a healthy skepticism about the possible improvements.
Further improvements to Spotts, new air conditioning in Boozel, improvements to a couple extracurricular fields and a new parking lot where Kraus Hall is all sound like good improvements to campus that would benefit everyone.
However, how many times have we heard that Miller Auditorium was going to be reopened?
We are not saying that the administration shouldn’t continue to improve buildings on campus, but are puzzling improvements being made all over the place while Miller continues to sit there looking sad and dilapidated.
Sure, we’ve all heard the argument for Miller before, about how it isn’t fair to students in the Theatre and Dance Departments that they haven’t had a proper performance space in over five years and how President Norton allocated the money that was supposed to go to its refurbishment to improve the equipment found in the PT and Exercise Science departments. While that wasn’t exactly fair of the administration to essentially favor one department over another, it should be important for them to put an entire building on its campus to its proper use, rather than have it sitting there and wasting space in front of Old Main.
However, the non-use of Miller Auditorium isn’t the only issue here, as there are other buildings on campus that could use some serious work. It’s already been announced that the windows in every classroom building will be replaced with ones that do not open, but can we talk about the eyesore that is both Spotts and Eisenberg compared to two beautiful buildings in Vincent Science Center and the Advanced Technology Center. Sure, not every building needs to look great on the outside, but was the point of redoing the outside of Vincent to make it look nicer if the administration wasn’t going to follow through with updating the outside of every building in the quad. The quad is arguably the most picturesque area on campus, so we should figure that if the administration were going improve the architecture of one their buildings that they wouldn’t quit just after one.
It is encouraging to see that the administration is addressing a big issue on campus, the lack of parking spaces, but there is a lot more that could be done. Obviously the university does not have infinite time or infinite money to do everything they want, but hopefully the administration still has all the issues on campus in the backs of their minds.
While they focus on making improvements to campus, big and small, we need to realize that no college campus is perfect and there are always improvements that can be made.
Hopefully, administration and students can continue to work together to make SRU as great as possible.
