Well, tuition is up another 4 percent next year, but you’ve got to hand it to BU — they really do want to improve our school, and they’re constantly undertaking new projects to enhance our campus. I don’t question this policy at all. I merely question the decision to have blind monkeys with inner ear infections throw darts at a chart of possible projects in order to choose what gets built. How else do you explain the capital projects that BU undertakes?
Earlier this semester, and even late last semester, before our collective innocence was shattered by what historians are already calling “Academic Probation-Gate,” the letters page of the Daily Free Press had been clogged with letters about BU’s new sailing pavilion. Whether or not it’s environmentally sound. Whether or not it will have a positive impact on the community. Whether or not Jojo, the chimp who threw the dart, is all-the-way blind or merely seeing impaired. I don’t think I’ve been this uninterested in a controversy since it was revealed that Baskin Robbins only carries 30 flavors (vanilla and vanilla bean were ruled to be the same thing.). Look at it this way: 97 percent of BU students will be utterly and completely unaffected by a new sailing pavilion. And the other 3 percent are sailors. Everyone knows sailors are in love with the sea. They’ll launch their boats from wherever we tell them to. Do we really need to spend money on this? Even if it is a worthwhile cause, is it more worthwhile than bringing our classrooms into the 21st century?
BU always claims that at college, academics come first. Failing your classes? You can’t serve on an E-board anymore, because academics come first. However, when it comes to spending, academics evidently come 47th, somewhere between landscaping at John Silber’s house and landscaping at John Silber’s gardener’s house. Hey, the College of Fine Arts building is old and outdated, and the classrooms and practice rooms are often stiflingly hot. Should we renovate it? Let’s see what Bobo says. (Thwip. Thwunk. Ooh ooh eeeek!) No, I’m sorry. The dart landed on “Rename ‘School for the Arts’ as ‘College of Fine Arts.'” And thank God, because as long as it was only a school, I just couldn’t respect it. I mean, children go to school, but only special people go to college. It’s the same reason I taunt School of Management students. “Hey,” I shout derisively, “you may be able to buy and sell me in three years, but at least I’ll have graduated from a college!”
While this “monkey dart” method of choosing where the money goes should be completely fair and non-biased, it somehow still manages to favor endeavors that bring the school more money. After all, some freshman living in Warren Towers isn’t going to start writing out huge endowment checks, even if you do renovate his living area and make it slightly less oppressive or install elevators built in the last 40 years. But rich alumni sure do enjoy staying in luxury hotels. “Hey,” says some rich man in a dark room somewhere, “why not tear down a neighborhood and put up a school-owned luxury hotel?” “But, sir,” says some foolish lackey, “a luxury hotel won’t have any benefit or bearing on students whatsoever.” “Shut up,” says the rich man who controls our lives. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll take a little bit of these fat alumni checks and put a foosball table in the GSU. Kids love the foosball.” What’s frightening is that you can really imagine a conversation like that, can’t you?
About the only thing BU’s doing right is the ongoing Student Village construction project, also known as the swankifying of campus. I can’t even imagine the aligning of fates that must have led to BU agreeing to shell out for something worthwhile. The pessimist in me is shouting that it must all be part of some evil plot, and that when all four residences are built, their windows will align and focus the sun’s rays to form a giant laser of some sort. However, even though it’s a great idea with the student’s best wishes at heart, why, oh why did they have to put in guard booths? It’s good to know that even while BU’s giving you a cookie with one hand, they’re poking your mother in the eye with the other, proverbially speaking.
But that really sums up what BU does with our money. Since we have no input into how the thousands of dollars we shell out each year are spent, we merely hope for the best but expect, well, pretty much what we’re getting. If only there was some way to influence BU’s spending decisions … Hey, wait! I’ve got an idea. Does anyone own a monkey costume?
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