By Deanna Amarosa
“Is it just me, or is TCNJ under constant construction?” a girl asks her friend as she maneuvers around caution tape on the sidewalk. I happened to overhear this keen observation on my way to class last week, but almost every student at the College has either made a statement similar to this, or has heard one like it.
It seems that there has not been one day this school year without some sort of work being done somewhere on campus. Students witnessed workers laboring seemingly nonstop within the past two weeks during the construction of the area surronding the new Lion statue next to the Brower Student Center. While it seems that we are in a constant state of construction, this recent addition appears to have taken priority over other maintenance jobs around campus.
It would be more important for the College to focus more on existing structural issues on campus. These same problem areas are the buildings that the College’s student ambassadors, clad in their signature white and navy striped shirts, always strategically avoid when showing prospective students and their families around our campus.
For example, Forcina Hall, a building on the far end of campus in which students collectively groan at the prospect of having a class in, is known for having ridiculously poor air ventilation and an elevator that students are genuinely afraid to set foot in because the doors often open and close seemingly of its own volition.
Forcina Hall is located right next to Roscoe West Hall, a building with a lot of potential, considering that it used to be home to the College’s library. The main entrance to the building, however, has had a sign saying “please use other door.”
Students who walk past the building at night can peer into its basement windows and see abandoned book shelves, tables and chairs. This space has the potential to be transformed into something great on campus — maybe a new area for the tutoring center to take advantage of, as the room that it is currently housed in becomes exceedingly cramped and loud during its busiest hours.
The College’s construction efforts, however, are more readily put into installing a new lion statue rather than thinking more practically about its construction investments.
An additional place for efforts to be put into is the Student Center. The food stations there are so poorly laid out that cashier lines often cut through food lines. The place becomes a madhouse between the hours of 11 and 2, when students can take advantage of meal equivalency. Something needs to be done about the layout to give students more space to wait in line.
These are just a handful of current structural issues that exist on campus right now. It is time for efforts to be put into creating solutions for existing maintenance problems on campus, rather than prolonging their negative effects and letting them continue to deteriorate in the years to come.
Students share opinions around campus
"Where would you like to see construction on campus?"
“The Towers — especially the elevators and showers.”
“In Packer, I think that the locker rooms are very dated.”
