I’ve got something of a soft spot for David Abrahamson. Yes, that David Abrahamson: the legendary white-haired, mustached Medill professor extraordinaire. I know, I know. But can you blame me? The man’s a modern marvel of vocabulary prowess. Which is why every Monday morning, I drag my sorry, exhausted butt out of bed and into Abrahamson’s class in Fisk 307. I make sure to arrive promptly at 8 a.m., ready to spend the next three hours hanging dreamily onto his every last prophetic word. He’s a hero in my eyes, and I want to suck the marrow out of each syllable – but on these kinds of mornings, staying awake becomes a world-class struggle.

At times like these, I don’t think it’s unfair to expect Medill to throw me a bone by providing me access to a decent cup of coffee. I should be awake to witness the magic of a Medill education, right? But at these moments of utmost vulnerability, when all I need in life is something hot and caffeinated to keep my pulse ticking through another journo lecture, I’m always cruelly reminded that the worst coffee on campus is located in the villainous hot drink machines of Fisk and the McCormick Tribune Center.

If I’m spending this much green on my fancy Medill education, I should be able to stay awake and participate in it without sipping suspicious, grainy gray-brown sludge from the Styrofoam chalice of indignity. Come on, Medill. If this is going to work out between us, I need roasted, fragrant legal addictive stimulants, not murky watered-down battery acid.

I’m not even one to be a diva about coffee. Really. It’s not like I’m insisting on genuine 100-percent Arabica beans, or imported java grown in the volcanic soil of Costa Rica. But potable coffee is, after all, the fuel that powers our hallowed industry – and Medill should be equipping its facilities accordingly.

Medill junior Ashley Fetters is Editor in Chief of the Daily’s weekly arts supplement, The Current. She can be reached at [email protected].