On October, 9, President Mitch Daniels announced a new campaign aimed at the advancement of our great university as a global leader and breeding ground for successful graduates. Taking a line from our fabled fight song, "Ever True: The Campaign for Purdue University" has set a lofty fundraising goal of $2.019 billion by 2019, and is built around the three priorities to "Place Students First," "Build on Our Strengths," and "Champion Research and Innovation." This campaign will surely change the face of the student experience over the next several years, and I'm here to make my case for some smaller changes that I hope this campaign addresses.
1. Stock real toilet paper in campus bathrooms.
This isn't a joke. The bath tissue we currently find in the stalls of campus bathrooms is nothing short of cruel and unusual. With $2 billion, maybe we could afford some Charmin or Angel Soft. At the very least, two-ply is doable.
2. We need salt for the sidewalks in the winter.
Unless Purdue would like to cover the hospital bills for broken wrists and concussions this winter, I suggest investing in adequate amounts of sidewalk salt and people to spread it so I don't have to fear for my life on the way to class.
3. Put "Push" and "Pull" signs on the confusing doors in Stewart.
I've been here for nearly five years and still second-guess myself. They have handles that lend themselves to pulling, but they are actually meant to be pushed. What is this madness?
4. Get rid of online homework fees.
We already pay a small fortune to go to school here, I hardly think it's fair or logical that we have to pay more just to complete our homework assignments.
5. If and when PAL 4.0 comes out, it better be lightyears faster than the current excuse for campus Wi-Fi, PAL 3.0.
If I am inside a campus building, that small fortune I mentioned above should ensure that I have reliable Internet access at the very least.
6. Expand the free parking areas.
We all know that parking tickets are just another slimy revenue stream at $35 a pop, so how about we dial back the insanity of parking at school a little bit with some of that $2 billion.
7. Let us print for free.
Again, charging us to turn in our assignments or study our notes at $0.08 a sheet just seems a little ridiculous.
8. If you are going to hold final exams in Lambert Fieldhouse during the spring, install some AC in there.
Or we can all pass out due to heat exhaustion and miss our exam, so this won't be a total loss if we can't get it done. Sweating in Lambert should be limited to track meets, not final exams.
9. If our football program can't turn it around, we could pay people to fill Ross-Ade.
Maybe a packed stadium all year will give our boys the motivation they need. If not, we could always set some "resources" aside for attracting new five-star recruits.
10. Rethink the bus routes.
Almost all of the buses run in the same direction so you have no choice but to take the long way around if your stop is only a few in the other direction. Surely $2 billion can buy us some common sense.
11. Provide professors with those stupid "Blue Books" for taking written exams.
It's ridiculous that we have to buy this "special" paper that's nothing more than loose-leaf paper stapled into a pointless booklet, to take written exams. If you're going to keep them around, buy a stack for the antiquated professors that use them, because we shouldn't have to.
12. Pay Von's to move their shops and build something more worthy of that prime location.
I'm not saying that they should be demolished and replaced by a bar, but they should be demolished and replaced by a bar.
Disclaimer: Jokes aside, I firmly believe in the mission behind this new campaign and I'm not trying to undermine its efforts. I think it's reasonable to voice some real concerns that Purdue students have, even if some aren't as serious as others.
