This month I spent all of my money on four cans of paint from Home Depot, three brushes, two trays, four rollers, an extension rod, electrical tape, and a tape measure that immediately broke. I spent all of my time painting my wall “Riviera Paradise” blue, a color I chose because in the moment, faced with forty feet of color swatches, I was feeling particularly bold. Three days later, a friend looked into my eyes and said, “Lilah, every time I step into this room I feel like I’m drowning.”
That was the day of convocation, when Higdon was given that giant pair of scissors to snip a ribbon off our new crystal palace. The setting sun was reflecting off the river, casting a glow over the weight pumping recruits on display inside. Higdon smiled like a proud daddy as he looked up at the new structure, commenting that This Building shows our commitment to the body to be just as strong as to the mind. A touching moment, ruined immediately by a girl a table over who whispered, “Ten million dollars for this? My bathroom ceiling has been raining for a week.”
It was a sweaty, unkempt, unhappy day the day I repainted my room. Bottom stripe: Mellow Yellow. Center: white. Top stripe: Candied Yam (read: Mac & Cheese Orange), my arms rolling and rolling over one section of wall until its blue tint finally disappeared. At 10 PM I knocked on my neighbor’s door, and the second he walked inside he said, “I like it. Just don’t continue with that stripe or it’ll start to look like a fast food restaurant.”
To which I responded, Jesus Christ, my room looks like a fast food restaurant.
I remember this day, too, actually, because it was our first Voice writers’ meeting, and the office was humming with complaints about various things, specifically the loss of the Times on campus, blaming the administration for deeming them an unnecessary expense. The general consensus was, we’re finally showing intellectual curiosity, and you can’t come up with ten grand? And while students are consistently losing the financial aid promised to them, you dropped ten million on the Rubiks Cube across Rt 32?
I would return to my room and essentially face the same issue the campus consistently confronts: instead of thinking, perhaps consulting, I’d hit the walls blindly and only notice my mistakes after I was done. It took weeks of trial and error before I even realized my end goal. Here, if something needs changing, we forget the importance of understanding the process behind the issue before we start flapping gums. And this causes the administration and SGA to yell right back at us, creating an unnecessary disconnect. Sometimes I imagine that all the money that flows through the College is thrown into some huge vat in the basement of Fanning, which Higdon and Dean Briddell take an elevator down to and scoop handfuls out of at their convenience. But s—’s delegated here, to a T, and each department controls the money they have: admissions separate from Res Life, separate from Student Life, separate from specifically directed donations. The grant for the newspapers does not come out of the budget, but a fund that has since expired. The $10 million was a donation directed specifically at building a new AC. Whether the budget is evenly distributed is a legitimate question, as is whether each department uses its money effectively. But the issues are separate.
The criticisms themselves are fantastic. They’re usually funny, and always represent significant student concerns. It’s clear that we want the changes made to be less flashy, instead reflecting what we strive to be as an institution: diverse, intellectually curious, creative. But the way we’re asking for them is uninformed and messy, which makes the administration defensive and unable to hear it. This leaves us stagnant and unchanged, sleeping in paint fumes for weeks, while if researched and well articulated, this drive can be what induces change at our school.
The responsibility goes both ways: our ignorance angers the administration, and students are blamed for what is seen as inherent laziness. And yet our Cans and our inboxes tell us that SGA Public Relations and the deans are unafraid of mass communication. Here’s hoping that they’ll begin to use that authority to do their job: clearly informing the student body of changes made on our campus and the reasons behind them. Students should not have to be part of the college’s executive process to receive that information. If this dual communication can be achieved, we’ll be that much closer to attaining a real dialogue, one between students and the administration that serves them.
After a week of damage control, my room is now the opposite of bold. It does look like a Goodwill store full of my grandmother’s old crap, which is much more my speed. So, taking the initiative to paint my room: moderately impressive. Just setting out to paint: incredibly unproductive. Now my room is warm and I’m surrounded by my favorite things, which means that ultimately, the best changes I made were the ones that resonated with my character and my needs.
Physical plant, please don’t use this article against me.
