In my decrepit old age, I’ve taken on my parents’ habit of watching Home and Garden TV. One of my favorite shows is called Realty Intervention, where homeowners learn either that their house is not as great as they thought or they are victims of “over-improvement,” a horrible syndrome gripping many over-privileged Americans. Homeowners will make too many improvements to a house, like adding both a personalized bar and a huge deck, in an attempt to bump up the property value. This tendency is always disastrous because whatever price the house sells for won’t pay the homeowners back for their investment.
“Over-improvement” could be the title of a sitcom about Ohio State’s love affair with construction. I’ve been a student at Ohio State for four years, and I’ve yet to see it without orange barrels and rent-a-fences all over the place. According to my high school guidance counselor all those years ago, construction is a good thing. When I was sent out on the search for the perfect college, I was supposed to take orange barrels as both a sign of progress and a symbol of the university’s devotion to the student body.
The administration is devoted to making Ohio State the best university it can be, and I accept that sometimes that means construction. I never saw the main library before the construction, but I heard it really needed it. I don’t know how many of you remember the old Union, but it was very ‘70s, gross carpet and all. Before the RPAC there was a decrepit old facility called Larkins Hall, which alumni have assured me is better laid to rest. So these improvements are indeed improvements: they will benefit the university in the long-run.
Except when it came to moving the Union — the Shoe? Really? You want me to walk all the way to West Campus when about 75% of the student body lives nowhere near there?
The point is, I’m all for the advancement of the university, and I understand that in an economic recession it’s cheaper to hire construction, but what is the true cost to the current students? Students who can’t hear their teacher’s lecture because someone with a jackhammer is working next to the building? Dust and debris everywhere, containing God knows what? A fence around the Main Library that makes it look like the university doesn’t want us to learn?
This construction isn’t really for us, the current tenants of the university. It’s about attracting new students and staff to the university — students with better test scores, like homeowners with better credit who can afford the price tag. What is the university trading up for — what’s the point of all these over-improvements? The libraries, recreation facilities and new Union will continue to draw the best and brightest in the nation to Ohio State for years to come, bumping up the university’s prestige and bringing in more money… but to what end?
We’re never going to be Harvard or Yale, nor should we be: we’re a university for the state of Ohio, intended to give its people and their children a great education at an affordable price. All this over-construction, over-improvement and over-reaching makes me think that there comes a point where the line between being an excellent in-state resource and ego-tripping is crossed — and I think we left it behind about four years ago.
