Like Cinderella, Loyola has spoken to its fairy godmothers and transformed from a simple, working girl into a prince-wooing sex kitten. The Danna Student Center renovations, state-of the-art classrooms in Bobet Hall and opening of the chemistry wing in Monroe Hall are, in a way, the university’s pumpkin carriage and glass slipper, but while everything won’t revert back at the stroke of midnight, life isn’t a fairy tale and it takes more than some helpful singing mice to maintain a happily ever after.
Regardless of opinions that the interior Danna Center renovations are tacky and unpleasant, it’s difficult to argue that the changes don’t bring revitalization to a campus that has mostly remained static throughout our college life. Before that, the most recent changes were to Carrollton Hall, which after years of revisions was able to lease all floors in 2006.
Change creates interest in a place and maintains it for those who are already attending an institution, but not all progress is beneficial.
When the renovations called that the Center for Intercultural Understanding relocate from their heavy traffic office on the first floor of the Danna Center to the second floor, many students who frequent the center protested that the Culture Room that would occupy the same space wouldn’t serve the same purpose as the center did.
Lisa Martin, director of the Center for Intercultural Understanding and mass communication professor, now resides upstairs. Her office that used to be frequented by all her students is now only supposed to be used for cultural understanding use.
Meanwhile, the Culture Room only contains some posters and photographs promoting cultural understanding and is usually vacant.
Two classrooms in Bobet Hall were also upgraded and remodeled with state-of-the-art equipment.
While improvements are nice, the problem remains that many courses are simple lecture courses that require little more than an ear and a writing utensil. Also, many professors who occupy the rooms cannot operate the new equipment and continue to use more familiar methods of teaching. It seems simply foolish and primarily motivated by public relations to spend more money than your house and car on two classrooms that can potentially remain ornamental.
The chemistry department isn’t the largest on campus, but it is significant to those, particularly upperclassman, who chose to learn from it instead of at a university not recovering from Hurricane Katrina. After 10 years of work, the wing was complete, but the chemistry department is not the only one in need of revitalization. The visual arts department and others require a face lift just to ensure that the students are benefiting as much as possible from their liberal arts and social justice education.
Buildings like the old library have been sitting vacant for years. It’s a historically rich and large building with space to offer amenities that the university doesn’t offer. Now that the university is recovering from Katrina and the admission is higher than it’s been in years, perhaps it’s time to do something with that space.
It’s possible for Loyola to eventually achieve its happily ever after. It just can’t rely on field mice to do all the work.
