Riiiiiiiiiicola!
... they decide to build a 30 million dollar ski lodge. Not only that, but they decide that, gosh, it would be just swell to eliminate two parking lots in order to erect said ski lodge.
Let me just elaborate on why this is a terrible idea: As a part time student, I've spent almost too many years attending the University. I've had to deal with many years of never being able to find a convenient place to park, or even any place to park, on campus. On most days, if you didn't arrive on campus by 9:00 AM, you were usually relegated to parking in the Poly Hi lot, which is on the far far far far far end of campus and involves a walk of at least a half mile (a full mile, if your class was in Hyland) in order to get to your class. This was especially great for those of us who were on tight schedules and couldn't actually make it to campus until about five minutes before the class started.
There were semesters where I have been frequently late for classes because I was driving around looking for a place to park. On many occassions, I have ended up having to skip classes entirely because there was simply nowhere to park in the area. Other times, I've resorted to parking illegally on the street or in the Steamtown Mall lot, and prayed to God that I didn't get towed, while wondering exactly why I plunked down $100 (now $200) on what is essentially a useless bumper sticker.
After several years of this garbage, the University finally got its act together and put some new parking lots in along Mulberry St. and Madison Ave. For the last couple of years, parking hasn't been much of a problem at the University. Now, if you arrive after 9 AM, you're merely relegated to parking on the top floor of the parking garage, which is still a lot better than being stuck in Poly Hi or taking your chances with the Scranton Parking Authority.
But nevermind the fact the commuter students can now make their classes, we have the more urgent problem that the spoiled rich kids from Long Island have to walk around for a minute to find a place to eat! Oh noes! So now, the University is going to eliminate both the Weinberg and Gunster lots in order to make room for a new $30 million ski lodg... err... student center.
Nevermind that this now means we commuters will be going back to the days of having to quit our jobs (which we need, because we don't have filthy rich parents to leech from), because we have to get to campus by 8 AM in order to have any hope of making our classes. Nevermind that they could have built an additional parking garage on Mulberry first, in order to prevent another parking crisis. Nevermind that there are a lot of other buildings on campus that need major renovations, including St. Thomas and Loyola halls. Don't even get me started on that hole in the ceiling of the WUSR main studio, through which you can see daylight. I'm sure the FCC will be thrilled if they saw what a crappy roof we have over thousands of dollars of sensitive broadcasting equipment. And yes, we did have a ceiling tile fall during a broadcast. Nevermind all this, because what we really, desperately need, more than anything else, is a fireplace lounge!
This pretty much reinforces an attitude that is very often implied by the University of Scranton: if you are not from Long Island, you are not welcome here. The University has consistently made it clear, through its actions, as well as its unresponsiveness to the needs of commuting students, that the only way for area students to have anything less than a frustrating experience at the University of Scranton is to pay top dollar for a dorm room that's only 10 miles from their house. This new "student" center happens to be the most flagrant declaration of contempt for commuting students yet. The more I look at these plans, the more I think that I'll be finishing my education at Marywood.
Looking back, I probably should have done that to begin with.
3 comments:
I hope that those black outlines are part of the finished building. I also dig those straight-from-the-box Photoshop textures that they used on the buildings. And the transparent trees. Spooky. Who said that modern architects don't know their image-editing software? But, at least, it's actually for the students...somewhat. At Marywood, they got rid of valuable parking lots in order to build a brand new luxury convent for a handful of nuns. The convent they had was too old for them, so they turned it into a dorm instead, despite the fact that it has no parking and is about 5 miles away from the rest of the campus. The new convent is much closer. They also changed the parking regulations, so that the lots closest to the buildings where the classes are are always filled with dorm students who never seem to drive or move their cars, whereas the lots closer to the dorms and furthest away from the academic buildings are always empty. You actually can't find a decent place to park there until after 3 in the afternoon and sometimes even later. I've had 6 p.m. classes that I had to park at least half a mile away for, much like parking at ol' Poly-Hi at El Universidad.
Okay, so Marywood's not that great, either. I think the main problem here is that parking lots don't look huge and impressive when they're taking the high school kids in for a tour. That seems to be the main qualification for campus planning these days. Why else would we have a business school that looks like a medieval castle? I'm suprised they managed to talk McShane out of the moat.
And while I like the black lines, this building just won't be complete unless they add a chair lift to the top of the Commons. It would go along just nicely with that huge fireplace in the lounge. A fireplace! Is that a great idea, or what? With the students they import into this place, the new building's going to be burned to the ground before they even get a chance to tear down Guster! Unless it's going to be like the St. Ignatius fountain, where it will only be running when the parents are around.
I would also like to add that, while everybody is complaining about the lack cafeteria space in Guster, the Artist Formerly Known as the Archives and/or Wolves' Den is sitting in the basement, entirely vacant. What's stopping them from just renovating that area into more cafeteria space? If they bothered to tear out a few walls and get rid of the huge, unnecessary maze in the back of the building, they'd be able to get more than enough seating in Guster. But again, "1950's architecture" != "good collegiate phallic symbol", so it's gotta go. Sustainability be damned!
This makes me wonder what building / parking lot will be next on the chopping block. I'm thinking St. Tommy will be the next one to fall. I'm sure they're already drawing up some huge Guggenheim-ripoff monstrosity to go up where its lot is now. The historical society will be thrilled about that neighbor, I'm sure.
Yes! The Artist Formerly Known as the Archive Wolves' Den---how I miss those grilled chicken sandwhiches and the potato chips that the pickles would make all soggy. And the Montaque Deli. And the "Soup of the Day" that no one ever bothered to order. Everybody sing: chicken fingers and fries and a medium lemonaaaaaade...Yow! They could easily turn that into a smaller cafeteria, or they just could just leave it the way it was. The problem with these schools is that they don't have any eating options that aren't full-fleged cafeterias (Marywood shut down theirs, too). But, then again, having a deli or a snack place would only benefit people who don't have the several-thousand-dollar-a-year meal plans, a.k.a. the commuters. Oh no, not the commuters, those strange people who drive and park cars! Perish the thought.
What are they putting inside this place other than cafeterias and a fireplace (an idea they stole from Marywood, by the way---it's usually the other way around, isn't it?)? I mean, that's a really big building in the drawing. It looks like they'd have enough room to put in something wortwhile and useful, but I doubt they will. Knowing the U, they'll just use the space for the usual stained glass windows, floor mosiacs, and empty lobbies. A post-impressionist wall mural of St. Ignatius. Oh well, it's not like I'm there anymore.
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