Hannah H. Mug
From the additions to Beach Music Hall made in the early 2000s to the renovations made to the Memorial Union just a few years ago, the campus is always changing.
One change that has been proposed, and now approved, is to update Abigail Morse Hall and to demolish Central Morse Hall and Northeast Morse Hall. The renovations would make Abigail Morse more ADA accessible and the third floor would also become liveable once again.
These plans came from a Residential Life Project Architectural Program Document created by President Allison Garrett, Vice President of Student Affairs, James Williams, and Director of Residential Life, Cass Coughlin. That plan comes from November 2016, yet there have since been minor improvements made to the current Morse Complex.
If there was already a plan in place to get rid of all or part of the building, why continue to make improvements to the current building? Over winter break, a new WiFi network was installed for Morse residents, which is a whole other topic of discussion.
Over the past summer, the Morse Reception Center received an upgrade and some of the floors in Morse were carpeted. According to a 2014 Campus Master Plan, replacing the Morse Complex is not a new discussion. The minor improvements have made some parts of Morse more liveable, but the costs were unnecessary.
Most of Morse will be different, if not gone, in a few years.
Our tuition and room and board money went nowhere with these recent updates. They won’t exist to help students in the future, and the extensive updates were not worth it for current residents.
As students paying for our education and paying to live on campus, we need to make ourselves aware of where our money is going. Reaching out to President Garrett or contacting the Faculty Senate is a start.
If you find that projects being funded are a waste of money, tell someone. Inform the President and the Faculty Senate about the issue. Ask if there are other options available.