Fenced In
The most recent installation on the College of William and Mary’s campus is an unpopular one. Students most certainly have some opinions about the fence.
The College of William and Mary is synonymous with many things: its extensive history, cozy campus, high academic standards, and its constant state of construction. The school’s vision is expansion. While this is not necessarily an issue, the current student body must bear the burden of the school’s efforts to reach this goal. First, it was the housing shortage caused by increasingly large freshman classes; now, it is the fact that literally half of the campus is either currently being torn down or will be in the near future.
You could argue that the fence is nothing more than an inconvenience. I would concur, but the scale of this inconvenience must be considered. The fence is expected to be up until 2025. It’s roughly a two-minute slowdown. Two minutes for the next three years is a lot of time if you are making that walk every day, or even multiple times a day. Think of all that you could do with this lost time. You could read several books, learn an instrument or maybe even a language, or perhaps best of all, you could learn how to cook so that you no longer have to consume the god-awful dining hall food.
Walking from the Sadler Center to Earl Gregg Swem Library (using stairs that are no longer present) was a part of my daily routine. Now, we are forced to walk through the Integrated Science Center, weathering the sleep-deprived glares of the Element Café regulars as we interrupt their caffeine fix. The soul-crushing atmosphere of the ISC is a far cry from the pleasant ambiance that accompanies the usual walk to Swem. The calming breeze is now tainted by the chalky odor of construction and a cascading green wall covered with redundant signage stating that this is, in fact, a detour. Way to insult our intelligence, admin.
Between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., I would describe the congestion as something akin to peak rush hour on I-95. Funneling hundreds of students through a single narrow choke, centered around the ISC exit nearest to Swem, greatly compounds the issue of the annoyingly large number of slow walkers that attend this school. There is no way to avoid this traffic. You are forced to slowly push your way through the hordes of people who are also unfortunate enough to be on this area of campus. The occasional golf cart passing through this bottleneck is also a massive slowdown, as the drivers do everything in their power to avoid running over the helpless students flocked together like sheep (but not in a cute way like the little yellow “shweep” that occupy the Swem Patio).
The westernmost area of the fence is likely nothing more than an elaborate conspiracy to make students forget about the existence of the “devil’s armpit,” better known as John E. Boswell Hall. As if the appearance of Boswell — both inward and outward — wasn’t out of place enough on an otherwise beautiful campus, it is now also a nuisance to navigate both to and from. President Rowe does not want students and faculty to remember Boswell, largely because it is expected to soon be underground — yes, in addition to being home to dozens of molds, the building is also quite literally sinking at a rate of several centimeters a year. This would make the “expansion of the Muscarelle” both a figurative and literal cover-up.
This unsightly development could perhaps ease the ongoing housing shortage. With the constant construction, living on campus is certainly a far less appealing proposition. Maybe the never-ending tour groups actually want to show off the construction for all the reasons not to come here. Then, at least, the school could house their students instead of leaving them to stress, commiserate, and ultimately live in Midtown Current Apartments, even though they swore they would never live there. This is not to say that living on campus was particularly appealing to begin with, given the run-down condition of some of the freshman and sophomore residence halls.
With all of this in mind, I think I speak for more than just myself when I say: President Rowe, tear down this fence. It is time for the student body to put its foot down against this injustice that has been imposed upon us. We stand here at a crossroads. Your choice will determine the fate of both the student body and this university. Let this serve as your call to action. No more fence-ation without representation!
RYAN GOODMAN // FLAT HAT MAGAZINE