How much more of CapU can break before the students say enough is enough
Lea Krusemeyer (She/Her) // Staff writer
Natasha Jones (She/Her) // Illustrator
I am sure students who have been at CapU for some time know the struggle: broken doors, broken water fountains, buttons for wheelchair access that are not functioning as well as technology that fails more often than not. This has become a norm for most of us and somehow I was also willing to look past these faulty aspects of CapU. That was until last week when an email was sent to students about testing of water sources and pipes on campus. A recent follow-up email mentioned that multiple faucets on campus would be replaced alongside a notice to not consume said water.
While it is appreciated that CapU is taking measures to ensure students’ safety, I begin to wonder what my tuition is used for. Every semester a portion of our tuition goes towards the “Student Service and Technology Fee” and walking through a broken door after a class full of tech issues and past a broken water fountain, just to wash my hands in a faucet that is deemed unsafe to drink out of makes me wonder where that money goes.
With tuition costs of more than $1,500 for international students and around $800 for domestic students per course, it would be appreciated to have a working campus. The issues begin right in the morning with the dreaded commute to school. If you drive to campus you know the fight for parking spots and if you take the bus, you spend what feels like hours in the line at Phibbs Exchange. Both issues have only increased over the last couple of years and CapU has failed to find adequate solutions. It could be argued that transportation doesn’t impact our immediate learning outcomes, but other issues do.
After spending more than half of a 90-minute lecture just sitting around while my professor desperately tried to get ahold of tech support, I wondered how my parents felt about their money being spent on me staring at the wall. If this was a once-in-a-while occurrence I am sure they would understand, but this has happened countless times over my time at this school. When asking around in the cafeteria at Birch, similar stories could be heard over and over again.
Next, we have an issue that is not just inconvenient but also actively prevents students from a smooth university experience. The door at the main entrance to the library building has been out of service for many months and with that, the button for wheelchair users. If you are a student with a physical disability this prevents you from entering the building without assistance, that is something you should be angry about.
Lastly, campus security and the speed they operate on. For safety reasons, I assume, a variety of classrooms around CapU are locked and instructors do not have keys or access codes. This means that campus security needs to be called to come and open doors for students to be able to have class. Those calls can take what feels like forever and it can take even longer for someone to show up. This again, just like the tech issues, prevents students from getting the education that we or our families pay thousands of dollars for every year. The question is, how much more are we willing to take until we say enough is enough and hold our school accountable for the service they provide us with?