Are We Living?

By JONAS MILLER
Features Editor

We, as a study body, are enduring one of the roughest patches in our college’s history. But, as we’ve been told through emails, panel discussions, and protests, “We will endure!”
Now, as college students, I think we can consider ourselves somewhat educated, at least educated enough to the point where we can think for ourselves. And so, I’m going to ask you to do just that: think for yourself.
Consider everything you’ve been told over the last couple of months about our college. Beginning in September, when the Times Union published the first story about “retrenchment,” but did’t actually say that word because, as it turns out, that’s NOT at all what the college is doing.
40 positions to be cut. 17 of which are vacant. Academic restructuring. Debt. Blah, blah, blah.
Emails begin to roll in from people in positions of power, telling us what is going on, and how the college is planning to act. The same information over and over again is being drilled into our minds about how everything is under control, “We have a plan.”
Questions begin to pour in from students, parents, faculty, and even the community. But how many answers did they actually get?
More emails bombard our inboxes about office hours and panel discussions, both with the aim of answering any questions we might have. Administrators and public relations reps begin to memorize the answers they give, as they dodge any kind of answer that could give some sort of definitive answer to the question that was asked.
What do we know after all of this? We know that some academic programs mean more to the college than others. We know that at some point, 17 full-time faculty positions will no longer exists. We know that people are angry: Students, parents, faculty, the community. Sound familiar?
We as students know one more thing, and we know this better than anyone else. We know that campus life, contrary to academics, is receiving no attention, no improvements, and certainly no love.
Except for the next two weeks, the library is only open for hours that are economically convenient for the school. FYI, 10 p.m. does not signify the end of our day.
The fitness center on campus is at capacity when more than 20 people decide to work out at the same time. That’s approximately 0.02 percent of the on-campus student population. Not to mention that there are three broken or missing pieces of equipment, and as of right now, there are no plans at all to fix or replace them.
More important than studying or working out, is the food situation on campus.
Nothing will be said about the dining hall, because that is a topic for another day. Camelot, however, is another story. The fact that they are not open on Sundays is more than inconvenient, it’s wrong. Especially because Sunday is the day that the college decides all tours, conferences, and special events should happen, bringing an extra 200 non-students into an already-crowded dining hall for breakfast. Where is a student to get food between the hours of 1:30 and 4:00?
The point in all of this is to voice the fact that there are problems at this school that lie outside of academics, and they are being ignored.
So I ask you, Saint Rose: we may be learning, but are we living?