Joshua Fortmann | Contributing Writer

I am sure that over the past few weeks all of you have heard the recent rumors about Swope Residence Hall being closed down. For many of us this is a crushing blow and we will spend our time pondering over our fond memories of the hall; Fearing for our lives as we creep down the dark and deserted corridors, trying to find a burner that works in one of the kitchens, discovering new and unusual odors, and falling asleep to the soothing sound of your next door neighbor’s bed springs. While these, and so many more, interesting opportunities will be forever lost to future BVU students, we chose to turn to the future during this tragedy and discuss our options.

The first thing we must decide is whether to renovate the building or start over from scratch. To show my personal opinion, I quote a modern day poet by the name of Mark Scott, “We don’t need no water, let the motherf**ker burn.” As iconic and beloved as the building is, it would be much simpler to start from scratch than to try and work around Swope hall’s “unique” interior design.

The next thing to decide is whether to rebuild it as a residence hall or whether it should be repurposed for something else entirely. Even with Buena Vista University’s (BVU) campus being absolutely packed to the brim, I would propose that space and the new building be used for a different function. BVU is one of the only colleges that I have ever been to that lacks a student center or some sort of student union. There is no space on BVU’s campus that the students don’t have to share with an academic building, conferencing, administration, or the general populace of Storm Lake.

This lack of any place just set aside for students to hang out or study has led to a distinct separation on campus. Science majors hang out with science majors, business majors hang out with business majors, etc. etc. Sure we all have friends from the other schools, but it seems impossible that there are so many people I’ve never seen before at a school this small. This is simply due to the fact that we seem to work, study, hang out, and attend classes only in our respective buildings.

So what do we want instead of Swope? We want our own space; it seems ridiculous that on a college campus, which is purportedly built for the students, we seem to be the only group who lacks an area just for us. So we want a student union, a nice place with some study rooms, some couches, a few vending machines, and nobody else to share it with.

Photo by Tyson Domingo