There is no question that the Georgetown campus is currently suffering from a severe case of myopia. While I agree with the sentiments that Jeff Bailin expressed in his viewpoint article (“Present Campus Atmosphere Fairly,” THE HOYA, Oct. 26, 2007, A3) regarding the general negativity in the pages of THE HOYA this semester, I also applaud THE HOYA’s journalistic efforts to shed light on what needs to be fixed around campus. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
Clearly, the plethora of broken campus drinking fountains (or “bubblers,” as we call them in Wisconsin) is a disgrace. One article (“Many Fountains Remain Out of Order,” THE HOYA, Oct. 19, 2007, A1) even went so far as to investigate 174 drinking fountains on campus and found that about one in every seven water fountains on campus is broken. Last year, I was a resident assistant in Harbin Hall and the drinking fountain on every residential floor was broken for the duration of the academic year. Facilities refused to fix any of them because they told us that the drinking fountains were continually being broken. When parents and guests from outside of the campus community visited Harbin, they were not only appalled that the drinking fountains did not work, but they were horrified that there was no plan in place to fix them.
Likewise, Kehoe Field needs to be fixed. Another article in these pages (“With Kehoe in Disrepair, Team Forced to Find Alternate Space,” THE HOYA, Oct. 19, 2007, B1) left us with the disheartening news that at this point in time there is no plan to renovate the field. Although there are clearly many other high-priority building projects – including the construction of the business and science buildings, the completion of the ulti-Sport Facility, and the construction of a new athletics facility – the administration should not ignore Kehoe Field. With the nature of our limited campus space it is a travesty to have that field unusable for our varsity athletic teams and barely usable for club teams.
Something also needs to be done about the capacity of GUMail accounts. The fact that students only have 20MB of space is shameful. After all this is the year 2007, not 1997. A single high-resolution photograph can take up a quarter of that space. I realize that people get their e-mail forwarded, but it would be much easier to simply have a Georgetown e-mail account with a larger storage capacity. I sincerely hope that the administration is pursuing serious discussions with Google and others about getting us more e-mail storage space.
At the same time, all of these problems can only be fixed by one thing: money. Georgetown University is a financial featherweight competing against heavyweights. Serious thought needs to be given as to how Georgetown can attract more capital and new donors. Georgetown is at a disadvantage in that it is not a state university flush with government money, but neither are many other prestigious universities that have large endowments.
One of the first things every administrator should think about after waking up in the morning (before getting coffee or even letting their dog outside) is how to bring more financial resources to this university. Not that we should bow down before golden calves and compromise the Catholic values that should be at the core of this Jesuit university, but money alone appears to be the tool that can improve campus infrastructure.
I agree with Bailin’s belief that we should not be so near-sighted that we forget what a privilege it is to be a Hoya.
Eric Wind is a junior in the School of Foreign Service.
