With the discussion around what to do with the old dining hall and the release of our article on Brown Hall, the grass past the fences behind and before us certainly looks greener. It seems we’ve enrolled at the perfect time to miss a past and a potential future student union.
I’m not sure if Eckerd really needs one.
When we (the people of the United States, generally) say student union, we mean a student center, a centralized spot for all student amenities. And the arguments for a student union seem sound; the consolidation of the fitness center, the Starbucks, the bookstore and other student spots could form something greater than the sum of their parts.
A student union could serve as a unifying force on the student body, a way to unite all clubs and cliques in the same spot with the same identity, that of Eckerd students, and it would serve as something like the oh-so-vaunted third space.
If that weren’t enough, who wouldn’t want more stuff? We could have the return of our ancient bowling alley, or anything else one might imagine. It could be the crown jewel of Eckerd, THE place to be.
But notice my usage of the word “could.” Indeed, these things may sound nice, but the effort might not be worth the payout. For one, the convenience of consolidation is not exactly staggering on a campus as small as ours. It’s not as if you’re taking a campus bus or train from the James Center to Alpha, it’s a five-to-10-minute walk.
There’s something else to be said about consolidation as well: I hate outlet malls. In my mind, there is nothing with less charm and nothing so antithetical to our campus than a sprawling building trying to cater to our every whim.
And what’s worse is the establishments we’re trying to cram together would impede on each other. A quiet study session goes to a maddening slog when someone’s pumping a bit too much iron next door and they’re grunting like a bull elephant in musth. The atmosphere a bookstore tries to cultivate is no doubt shattered by the crashing of pins across the hall. This is far from ideal.
And, for a school that’s (hopefully) soon completing the new dining center, it all seems a bit costly to do anything above the bare minimum for a student union. Simply put, we just don’t have the cash to throw around purely for convenience.
Yet, all of this could be worked around. Damn the consolidation, and damn any major funding—just throw a bowling alley beneath the caf and be done with this! But besides having a bowling alley (which, honestly, I would love, but it doesn’t require any student union), I believe the loftier ideological ambitions of a student union would never be reached.
Every club won’t meet beneath the same roof because some depend on the absence of them. The myth of a homogeneous Eckerd community will not come alive with a block of concrete and a bowling alley. If there is any hole that Eckerd is trying to fill, a student union likely won’t fit.