As a new director of Residential Life begins her tenure at Wesleyan, we would like to present some ideas on how to improve both the current and future living situation for students.
The unequal distribution of maintenance funding among the different residential facilities needs to be addressed. The new Fauver Field buildings are equipped with plasma screen TVs and other superfluous luxuries while older buildings remain in a state of continual disrepair and the beleaguered senior woodframe houses threaten to cave-in on their unsuspecting residents.
To help rectify these problems, we strongly endorse the University to continue with its plan to build prototype houses like the ones on Warren Street and Fountain Avenue. These houses are furnished, have geo-thermal heating and modern amenities, fit more students (fifteen to twenty per house as opposed to five), and are much more structurally sound. Although more expensive to construct initially, once built these houses save the University money and provide students with the living conditions they deserve.
Another important initiative is to foster better communication between the offices of ResLife and Physical Plant. Many students are confused about which office provides which services and are redirected between them several times. Additionally, ResLife can best identify the major problems students have with their housing and communicate this to Physical Plant—instead of leaving the students to do it for themselves. ResLife has an obligation to ensure that the buildings it is asking students to live in are reasonably clean and properly maintained. The future prospect of building more prototype houses or Fauver dorms does not excuse the current poor state of the woodframe houses and the older freshmen dorms. Something must be done to fix the situation in the short-term.
We hope the new director, Fran Koerting, will keep these suggestions in mind when she decides how she wants to shape the future of student housing.
Leave a Reply