Shane Wade
Opinion Editor
The sounds of a pounding hammer and whirling drills wake students mid-morning. Motorists turn corners, only to meet closed-off roads. Pedestrians walk through clouds of dust and dirt. Parking lots once used as shortcuts now contain five-story buildings.
Construction at VCU has been and will be, for the foreseeable future, an integral part of daily campus life. By-and-large, students, visitors and faculty view it as a hassle and a blight upon city aesthetics. And as much as the administration knows about these complaints, they will, as they should, let their plans go on.
What most opponents to construction don’t know is that tuition money isn’t funding the majority of the new buildings or renovations. For the most part, construction projects are supported with general funds, university funds and revenue bonds, all of which are derived from a variety of sources including the state, endowments and donations. It’s money already reserved and budgeted for the purpose of VCU’s expansion, so it’s a moot point to complain about the university using our tuition to grow and ignoring present problems.
It’s juvenile to think of the administration as solely focused upon expanding an academic institution for the sake of boasting about their expansion and drawing in more students; they know that’s not the way to sell a school to investors and prospective families. The university has concrete plans (viewable online) about the direction we’re heading and the steps we’re taking to get there.
VCU is in the business of physical expansion and academic growth; the Information Commons and library expansion projects will alleviate the cramped corners of Cabell by providing additional study spaces. West Grace North will provide housing for an additional 388 students on what previously was a parking lot.
These aesthetic slights are practical solutions that solve current problems that students complain about, as well as heading off future problems. This construction is fixing the more physical problems (in terms of overcrowding) we otherwise would have complained about.
As much as I hate the desecration of precious parking lots and vacant spaces, it’s necessary for the expansion of VCU, both as an academic campus and as a community. Each and every building being constructed now and those proposed for the future serve an indelible purpose in better serving the student body. My only regret is that I’ll be graduating long before a great many of them are finished.
By 2020, the landscape of Richmond’s dilapidated buildings and weeded lots will be unrecognizable because of the visual sacrifices we make today. The Richmond we once knew will fade away, rebuilt for a new generation and their needs. Without the administration’s drive to recreate the environment in Richmond to be more receptive, welcoming and accessible for a younger student populace, we’d be living in an outdated cityscape.
Richmond is and will be forever defined by the actions VCU takes. No other force or business in the Richmond area drives innovation, renovation and socioeconomic progress like VCU.
Be proud of that.