COMMENTARY

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Priorities need a revamp around ASU campus

Sean Oakley

I’ve been a reporter at The Appalachian for nearly two years now.
Over the course of those two years, I have seen countless numbers of letters to the editor screaming that we do not do enough investigative reporting.

I have listened to countless classmates complain that there’s nothing in our newspaper to read, and that we don’t cover enough “hard news.”

Since the initial proposal of this new tuition hike, aimed at helping out Appalachian State University’s lowest-paid SPA employees, news stories about the tuition hike have swelled the front pages every Tuesday and Thursday. Yet, just yesterday, 90 percent of the people I talked to had no idea there even was a new tuition proposal. I found myself wondering if The Appalachian’s critics even read what they so eloquently ridicule.

Through another light, I was attacked repeatedly last semester for my opinions on the war in Afghanistan. I watched large groups of students loudly and publicly criticize the U.S. government and its actions.

I listened to left-wing liberals scream about how the government was out to get us, how they were capitalistically totalitarian and how all they did was spread a famine of money-aimed militaristic goals across the globe.

The intellectually elite, or so they would like to label themselves, knew the truth about the U.S. government, and they knew the government wasn’t to be trusted.

Yet, when the Board of Trustees approved the chancellor’s proposal for a tuition hike without ever seeing criteria for how it is to be implemented, the voices that once so vehemently attacked a government whose seat is 400 miles away suddenly had nothing to say about an administration in their own back yard.

Okay, I do realize the actions of Washington, D.C., do have a direct impact on our lives. But I question the integrity of people who will march about things happening on the other side of the world, yet unquestioningly accept the decisions of an administration that does not in the least bit resemble a democracy.

As Teddy Roosevelt might have said, SGA has talked very loudly but has seemed to have left their stick at home.

And while similar proposals, that coincidentally passed, met strong student opposition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Appalachian students have hardly even paid attention to the frightening trend being revealed.

Just look at the statistics: In the year 2000-2001 tuition was at $982, but if this proposal passes, the tuition rate next year would be $1,581.
That’s a more than 70 percent increase over just two years. And the scariest assumption would lead students to believe that this proposal is going to create a precedent by which future tuition hikes will be justified.

But, precedents and future prophecies aside, this proposal would cost students a very real $150 next year.

Even if mommy and daddy are flipping your bill, stop for a second and think about what $150 could buy.

The point is, though I so often hear members of Appalachian State pride themselves for belonging to such an open-minded, activist, sophisticated school, the apathetic student body is quite clearly proving any optimistic stereotypes of this university to be completely ill-founded.

How can you change the world if you can’t even handle your own back yard?

Maybe protesting a propsed $150 tuition hike isn’t as glamorous as marching up and down King Street screaming “save the innocent terrorists,” but I didn’t think protesting was for the glamour.

This tuition increase is something that directly affects students, a chance for students to rally and at the very least put pressure on an administration that basically assumes our ignorance.

But can you really blame the administration? With the silence of a deer caught in headlights, we are only proving the administration right.

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Campus-wide destruction running rampant

Carrie Baker

So I have noticed a couple of things on my way through campus to class in the past few weeks: 1. There is a gate on half of Sanford Mall. 2. The entrance to Plemmons Student Union near the Crossroads Coffee Shop is blockaded. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who has noticed this.

Two more construction projects have recently gone up on campus.
The more noticeable project is the bookstore expansion. In order to complete this project, half of Sanford Mall has been taken away from us.

The other project involves one of the entrances to the student union and the set of stairs leading down to Sanford Mall. The aforementioned entrance and stairs have been closed to make way for a solarium.

I have two problems with this: 1. My path to class has been seriously re-routed. Walking to class now somewhat reminds me of those Family Circus cartoons where the little boy takes a thousand twists and turns (and an extra 15 minutes) to get from point A to point B. I, however, am not seven years old and do not find it amusing that it takes me five minutes longer to arrive at point B.

2. I will miss the other half of Sanford Mall. It’s one of those
attributes of Appalachian that provides an aesthetic quality. My senior year in high school, my dad and I came to Appalachian State one sunny February afternoon to tour the campus. By the end of that tour, I was ready to send my check in and sign up. What initially attracted me? The beautiful campus.

I visited several college campuses that year, and Appalachian State’s was by far the prettiest. There have been several changes made to the campus I originally toured. The bookstore project is just another change.

Officials would argue that these changes are important to the university. Appalachian State must continue to grow. Construction and growth projects are constantly being planned and funded. Once those plans are in place and the funding is set, the inconvenience of construction begins.

And when it comes to construction at the university, when it rains, it pours. It seems to me that several projects are taken on at once here.
Perhaps this is so some day they will all be finished at once and campus will look less like a hardhat area. But until that day comes, my beautiful university has been transformed into a muddy, gated mess.

Do I feel that advancement is important? Yes, I do. In order for Appalachian to grow the campus must give in to progress.

But at what cost? The price right now is the convenience of faculty, staff and students and the aesthetic qualities of the school. As most of us are forced to walk around and add minutes to our daily routes, it is hard for us to see the proposed good of the future.

I’m sure the new bookstore will be nice and the solarium will be just lovely, but for now they are both causing quite a bit of frustration.

It will be this time next year before we see the construction from the solarium vanish and the solarium take its place. It will take even longer for the bookstore project. The projected time for the bookstore construction and expansion is 565 days.

You do the math—it’s going to be this way for a while.

I’m trying to apply patience to this situation, mainly because I have no choice in the situation. The university is going to grow; I just wish it wouldn’t create such a mess as it moves along.