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Friday,
February 20, 2004 |
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TCU
needs to bring campus back to life by refocusing on its
beautification
COMMENTARY
B y Brian
Wooddell
I’m
a good Horned Frog.
I dutifully duck my head when entering the mail room and
the back of the Student Center, I walk around the school
seal and I rarely walk on the grass in front of Reed Hall.
I even paid attention during my Monday tour.
As I understand it, years ago, some old lady gave an amazingly
large amount of money to TCU just to make it pretty (I’m
paraphrasing, so please, no letters explaining what really
happened). To me, this is as, if not more, important of
a gift as the Moncrief dynasty’s new field at Amon
Carter. An attractive campus makes students feel better
and helps them take more pride in their school. These
days, however, I think she would be appalled.
That said, I’d like to praise workers at the TCU
Physical Plant for what they have done to keep our school
in bloom. The flowers and plants are beautiful, and the
grass, when it’s not dead because of the weather,
is usually soft and flawless. Good job, guys.
But there are problems the Physical Plant cannot fix,
either due to lack of funds or resources. For example,
the faculty and visitors parking lots are potholed eyesores.
If TCU is so concerned about its image, it would follow
that these be fixed soon, since they are some of the first
things prospective students see.
Next, we have the Brown-Lupton Student Center, one of
TCU’s biggest embarrassments. Every time I walk through
its screeching back door, I wonder what the designers
were thinking. The lounge needs new furniture, not old,
stained couches and a TV on a leftover art pedestal. Frogbytes
should be where the Reading Room is (this is why we have
a library), and The Main should be expanded so I don’t
have to jump over the Pi Kapps and the football/basketball
teams when trying to find a table. And please, can we
get rid of the old television antenna on the roof?
When faced with Texas A&M’s Memorial Student
Union or UT’s Union, how can we even fool ourselves
into thinking ours measures up, even though our school
is a fraction of the size.
While there isn’t space to expand on the other problems
I see, consider the following overview: The library’s
front entrance is stained from acid rain and rust and
its old entrance needs a little “sprucing.”
The Sid Richardson hand rails don’t match from north
to south. Moudy’s front awning hasn’t been cleaned
in years, and the ivy either is or looks to be dead during
most of the time classes are in session.
Froggie-Five-O has managed to destroy every corner of
grass on campus because of its drivers’ inability
to negotiate turns (this could have its own column). The
area north of the stadium looks unkempt, even when there
isn’t construction. Finally, the new basketball facility
looks like a bleach-white pole barn from central Oklahoma
(no offense).
Now that we’ve raised tuition, we should use those
dollars to make TCU presentable. Right now, we lose to
other schools, such as SMU and Trinity, just to name a
couple. That is unfortunate. Instead of making inane improvements
on the football field or other facilities, TCU should
focus its efforts on fixing the various eyesores on campus.
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