Dear Northwestern,
I’m trying to think of the nicest way to say this. It’s been said before, but I’m going to say it again in the hopes that, like a bad song you hear over and over, you finally start to like it and dance to the beat. Please help Norris University Center take a step toward enlightenment by having it reincarnated as a building that people actually enjoy. In other words, drop it into the lagoon and make a new one from scratch.
A university student center should be the nucleus of a campus, the veritable Grand Central Station of scholastic and social interaction: a place where students are wont to go, a place conducive to their social patterns and study habits.
Norris is none of these. It doesn’t attract students in high numbers unless they’re jonesing for caffeine, and it stuffs student groups into cramped, overcrowded offices.
Norris, built in 1972, is the oldest student center in the Big Ten not to recently undergo major renovation. And it’s not the good, University Hall-history-touting kind of old either, but old as in 1970s-concrete-prison-overdose-architecture-old.
NU has attempted to revitalize its dying student union with a number of minor improvements in recent years. The addition of Starbucks a few years ago with comfortable seating was a notable enhancement, but others, such as the new-age furniture and a poorly done paint job added to the lower level this past summer, failed to counteract the atmosphere exuded by Norris. The ground floor still has the same stale and deflating feeling to it‚- the only difference is now the muted tile floor is complemented by janky white and black wooden walls instead of brown ones. All of these additions are merely face-lift after face-lift on the Joan Rivers’ face that is Norris University Center.
Because of this, the food court is vastly underused, and the rest of Norris besides Starbucks is shunned like the claustrophobic hospital corridor it looks like. NU, it’s time you took microecon with Schulz; he’ll tell you all about opportunity cost, and how you’re losing more overall by not cutting your losses and just starting over.
The administration consistently blames a lack of donors for never rebuilding the student union, but what type of excuse is that? Even during an economic recession, NU’s endowment is just under $6 billion. NU had excess operating expenses of more than $100 million at the end of 2007, and in 2008, due to that miracle drug Lyrica, that number was more than $700 million, according to NU financial reports.
Would skimming a bit off the top of the extra revenue NU has in addition to the endowment really set the University back that much? Not to mention the fact that NU is a non-profit institution and should be spending that money on its students in the first place. Come on, NU, it’s time you gave our fair institution the student center it deserves.
Weinberg senior Kenny Levin can be reached at [email protected].
