It seems like every year we see the campus being renovated, something is being added or restored. Students have expressed concern or mixed feelings in the past when other buildings were renovated.
Now, with the demolition of the Siskiyou building in order to put in a new physical science building, students continue to express concern.
In my opinion, it may seem that things on campus are always costing us more than needed as tuition continues to rise every year. However, in order to live in an advanced society, we must continue to invest in our programs, especially science.
According to Chico State, the new building would encourage Science-on-Display, stimulate interaction and connect with the larger campus community. The four to five floor building would provide room for laboratories, support space, offices, classrooms and a vivarium.
Since the building would not be done for a couple of years, physical science majors could not express too much excitement since most of them would not be able to enjoy all the new technologies the building would offer.
However, other students being directly affected by this change definitely had an opinion.
Senior Elian Ortiz who currently works at PATH Scholars-Foster Youth Program has expressed concern since the current office inside the Siskiyou building has been relocated to a new office space, that they also have to share with the Dream Center which was also moved out of the Siskiyou building.
“At PATH we have to meet with students weekly and even though we do have a much bigger space we are running into problems, such as not having printing access now which we usually offer to our students for free ” Ortiz stated.
“Also, since we have to share the space with another program there isn’t much room for confidentiality when we meet with our students making this experience difficult for the students when this program is meant to help them.”
Offices like the Wildcat Food Pantry also had to be relocated after already having had such a hard time in getting the university to provide them with this space. Working with them when they first began, the Wildcat Food Pantry expressed frustration on having the pantry inside one of the professor’s office. Now having to relocate could bring up more frustrations.
At the moment all of these things make it seem like this new building is not worth it and just another waste of money made by the university. It is hard for students to be able to see the benefits of this new building since most will not be able to utilize the benefits it would add to campus because of how long a project like this will take.
However, like our campus motto goes: “today decides tomorrow.” We need to make plans for the future now. I am not saying that any subject is more important than another but in order to continue advancing, we need to advance our sciences as well.
At first, it will be tough especially for organizations being relocated. However, one must not lose sight of the end goal and the benefits of a new building add to the campus and community. Change is always difficult but we must look at it with a positive mindset.
Nicte Hernandez can be reached at [email protected] or @nicteh7 on Twitter.
