At this time of year, there are a multitude of factors that make Tufts students anxious. Bad weather, worse midterm exams, and study abroad applications all combine to stress out Jumbos as they navigate the perilous slog to summer. Yet residents of Carmichael Hall have one more concern, one that won't go away until the summer: the holes in their dorm's roof.
The Carmichael roof has long been notorious for its porous quality, in much the same way that Wren is (fairly or unfairly) referred to as the home of curiously unidentifiable insects. Similar roof problems plagued residents of the fifth floor of Carmichael last year, and some students were moved into different rooms last semester when a small part of the roof collapsed.
Acknowledging the difficulty a student must have in completing term papers when it is raining in his room, as well as the obvious health and safety issues involved, the administration has announced that there will indeed be a renovation of the Carmichael roof. Facilities, which will defer the construction to an outside contractor, expects work to begin after commencement and for the roof to be entirely fixed when the class of 2011 arrives in the fall.
There are two problems here. Firstly, the administration seems to have behaved both strangely and irresponsibly by waiting until now to announce any kind of real and lasting renovation to the roof, when it has clearly been aware of the problem for some time. Indeed, the idea that last year Tufts University was unable to gather the means to put right what by now can only be a health and safety violation simply doesn't make sense. The fact that students are waking up with water streaming through light fixtures and pieces of roofing on their faces should put to rest any kind of speculation that this was a problem the university could afford to ignore.
This delay in action has prevented work on the roof until the summer - an understandable, if unfortunate, delay. Though it is of course not possible to replace a roof while students are still living in the building, it is regrettable that the current Carmichael residents will continue to be inconvenienced and disturbed by their ceilings' inability to keep the weather where it belongs, and downright absurd that a university with a price tag of over $45,000 would continue to provide dangerously sub-standard accommodations for its students.
Tufts students have enough things to be stressed about. At a premier educational institution like ours, students are ambitious and hardworking people who have many important things to worry about before they graduate. It is understood that some housing options on campus are better than others. Nevertheless, this university owes its students a safe and adequate living environment, and the excuse that problems will be fixed for next year's residents simply isn't enough for those who have been dealing with the problem for six months and must endure three more.
Of course it is appreciated that this chronic problem will be fixed, but it should never have reached this point in the first place. The fact that it did - and the inadequacy of the administration's response - should serve as an example of what not to do in the future.
