By: Ryan Harrington, Contributor
Running a university should be like writing a book. Before pressing pen to paper, the author must draft to form a sensible plot that addresses his intent. He can then curtail potential plot holes before printing the manuscript. At Canisius University, we scribble past the rising action only to be riddled with unforeseen complications and blindsided by the conclusion.
This fall, the university announced that the entire second floor of the library will be shredded and the tatters will be rewritten into the crisp Griff Center for Success, a one-stop-shop for tutoring, guidance and academic assistance. When the Griff Center is finally bound, it will be a Frankenstein’s monster of crumpled pages bearing the faded writing of better days. We gain one functional space, but lose so much more.
The center will be a convenient combination of everything from guidance counseling to the writing and tutoring centers, but no new programs. This is an unfair trade for the student body; each space leaves behind an empty chasm without replacement for the lost library plans. Our university may eventually repurpose these spaces as classrooms – if the money materializes, that is – but we don’t need new classroom space; half of Science Hall is empty and we’re bleeding students like rainfall. This new Griff Center is a leech that gains us nothing.
Without the second floor of the library, we no longer have archives, a quiet study space or the wealth of knowledge that we’ve already tossed into the dumpster. There are countless students with ADHD and ADD who will require an immediate replacement, but that doesn’t seem to have been a consideration. A quiet space is timeless: never antiquated.
An immediate replacement for the quiet floor should have been designated at the selection of the grounds. The basement of the library would serve this best. Group work can occur in breakout rooms and on the main floor, and a ‘whisper floor’ is less needed. Perhaps when the pages settle this will be the solution, but too often we neglect avoidable problems.
Our administration insists the center is progress and that students will be included in the design process. Not all progress is good. Students should have been included from the inception of the plan and demolition shouldn’t have begun until the design was complete. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail; these are the natural consequences of our consistently impractical actions.
The cry of progress is an excuse to silence any recognition of the loss of student services. Our university acts as if anyone angered by the center is a pillar of salt blocking the path to the future. God asked Lot and his wife to have faith, but our new administration hasn’t earned that. Without blind faith, we need to look backward and forward. Our focus on the future is not enough without perspective; we cannot alienate the ‘salt of the earth’ necessities to be second in line to the next new trend. Humans learn from experience, and we must use the hundred years we have.
Growth and change are the lifeblood of a university, but before we bash through vital spaces like the Kool-aid Man, we should consider the ramifications.
In the last few years, little has progressed positively. Consider the half-paved expanse of weeds that replaced the parking ramp, the countless offices moved to accommodate a renovation we couldn’t afford or even the fiasco at the State of the University. These – like the quiet floor debacle – are solvable problems, even within the confines of a small budget. These issues should have been avoided before they snowballed into too many problems at once.
To avoid trampling the tatters of the past, we need to look back and learn from practiced trial and error. While a review of the ‘wisdom’ of the ancien regime (the chain of Jesuit command broken by Hurley’s presidency) may not enlighten all the answers for a new generation, it will orient us towards our shared mission. We must take that insight and move pragmatically forward so we are ready for a future of revolutionized excellence.
Just because it’s time for a new chapter doesn’t mean we can burn the book. The tradition of a Jesuit education is a commitment to offer well-rounded knowledge cheered with contemporary innovation but tempered by curated constancy. Some necessities make our campus a school. As we write the future of that school, I hope we can continue our strengths and remain faithful to our values. Let’s be the best Canisius we can be rather than a salty shadow of another institution.