Why East Hall? | Opinion column
By Micah McVicker | Staff Writer
Additions to our expanding campus makes this an exciting time at UIndy. The expansion of the Schwitzer Student Center wrapped up in time for the second semester of the school year. The Krannert Memorial Library will undergo renovation in the near future. Improving the aesthetics and safety of Hanna Avenue begun.
East Hall is now received its finishing touches in time for the beginning of the school year. The addition of a sixth residence hall undoubtedly adds beauty to the UIndy campus. Additionally, the construction of East Hall allowed access to 250 new parking spaces on the north side of the hall. All of these construction projects aptly serve the needs of the growing student body for East Hall.
Those added parking spots cater to the needs of this campus, however, I cannot see how the new residence hall aids the university. It creates a lot of interest and enthusiasm in the student body, yet allow me to play devil’s advocate. What benefits are induced when you have the women’s Resident Assistants’ rooms in Warren given to freshmen and made into triples?
According to an anonymous article posted on the UIndy public Web page, enrollment is expected to increase by at least 100 students, setting another record for total students. Applications rose 11.5 percent. So we obviously didn’t accept everybody, which is a good thing, because we’d have nowhere to put them.
Brit Alamillo, accepted to UIndy, received a letter from Residence Life saying she’d need to find off-campus housing if she chose to attend UIndy.
“Due to the fact that I received the letter so late in the choosing process, I had made up my mind to attend Ball State prior to receiving the letter. Once I got the letter though, it helped back up my decision to go, to Ball State, because I felt that if I switched schools suddenly, there would be no place for me to stay on campus [at UIndy].”
We lost a student to Ball State, and there’s no way of knowing how many other students we lost to other universities because we didn’t have the on-campus housing. According to a Growth and Change Update regarding East Hall on the public UIndy Web site, the new hall features 160 single-occupant rooms. These rooms will house 152 students, according to a previous Reflector story. I cannot comprehend the logic of building a residence hall that doesn’t cater to freshmen in a year that saw the most freshmen admitted in school history.
It seems like a new freshman residence hall is what the school should have built. Accepting more freshmen brings in the tuition dollars the school makes and actually having decent housing for freshmen will make this place that much more appealing to those still choosing their college future.
