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Students should appreciate the struggle of others

Man, kids these days have it made. It’s amazing how much wiser I’ve become in the past four years, matriculating through Grambling State. As I’ve gotten used to the way things used to be, I’m noticing more and more students are not appreciating where this university is now.

When I first arrived at GSU in the summer of 2003, I was placed in Pinchback Hall on the sixth floor. Many of you don’t know what Pinchback Hall is, so let me explain. Pinchback Hall was the equivalent of a slum high-rise.

You never knew what could malfunction in Pinchback. One day, the fire alarm would go off all morning, and the next day the elevator would break down, making you have to walk up and down the stairs. I remember when I had to take my first shower in Pinchback. I was literally disgusted by the conditions and opted to wait until I went home the next day.

But today, there are no towering high rises in Grambling. The last one is in its final phase of destruction, and now students have Tiger Village. I wish I could’ve lived in Tiger Village while I was matriculating through GSU.

To my dismay, I am shocked to see that students actually don’t like the dorms. If students did, then they wouldn’t tear them up or trash the dorms. They wouldn’t break fences designed to protect them from would-be intruders.

Yet, students, for some reason, do these things, leaving the administrators shaking their heads. The sad thing is that the administrators are pretty lenient on punishments to the perps doing these activities.

So, this is my call to any administrator: Punish these idiots.

I wish Pinchback, Wheatley, Martha Adams and Jones still stood. We could place these fools in those dorms and let them tear them up. Maybe we would’ve saved money on demolishing them.

I don’t want to come back to GSU in five years and see the dorms are raggedy or nearing destruction. I don’t want to hear the same complaints that other students and I made when we first got here. I don’t want to see holes in the walls and broken elevators.

Unfortunately, I fear that this will be the case. Even as President Judson and crew erect these new buildings, I fear idiots will be the downfall of them. While I know buildings don’t make an institution, the quality of the dorms surely does attract top students to an institution.

I’m anxiously awaiting the opening of Dunbar Hall. It’s looking very nice on the outside and seems to be a pretty big and more than suited to current needs. Once this is finished, I will tour the building, snapping my photos of a dream that will become a reality.

However, my question is will the students truly appreciate it? Will they tear it down like they did Drew Hall and are doing to Tiger Village? Will the building even last 10, 20, 30 years under the constant attacks from its inhabitants?

Those are questions I’ll have to wait to have answered.