2008 Woodie Awards
Unite Pleasantville with One Campus
Michael Brady
Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
If you ask any student on the Westchester undergraduate campus of Pace University about the biggest weakness of the school, they will most likely tell you it is the separation between the Pleasantville and Briarcliff campus. The consequences of this weakness are a constant background flow of the bus, and students who may be handicapped from certain aspects of university life because of the obvious logistical problems. Interestingly enough, during a recent meeting between President Caputo and The Paw Print, Caputo agreed with this observation and even went as far to say that a long-term dream could involve a unified campus. This would be a huge benefit to the University if achievable.
The benefits that would result from a unified campus would be enormous. First off, it would create a more unified class and student population. Sociologists will often say that the best predictor of who will become good friends or form lasting relationships is simple proximity. A glance over the townhouses containing mostly seniors and comparing them to their freshmen room assignments will often yield stunning parallels. The unification of both campuses would increase class cohesiveness and the social life of the University by the simple human nature to befriend those around us.
Beyond the social benefits of a more concentrated dorming population, there are the logistical benefits. This is visible through the various events and speakers brought on campus. The convenience of being able to quite literally roll out of bed and attend these events or speakers will almost certainly increase the number of those who attend those events, giving a boom to campus life. Furthermore, the logistics of campus life would become much more student friendly, the bus would be mostly eliminated, and the food service would be able to concentrate their efforts and maybe even expand service and hours with more students around campus.
In short, the benefits of uniting both campuses are obvious and desirable; however, this would be a major undertaking from a logistical and financial standpoint. The first and most obvious problem is that the University would have to build quite a lot. They would have to replace all of the dormitory and office space on the Briarcliff campus.. This would clearly require several more buildings and a large amount of land. Besides the tens of millions of dollars necessary to build, there is the unfortunate thorn of the town of Pleasantville. It took several years to push the gym through the various political organs of village government; a project of such massive size as to require enough building space on Pleasantville to replace Briarcliff would quite certainly be a campaign in itself.
In short, although the process would be long and trying and may not be feasible until the University is in a stronger position, the unification of the campuses is a desirable and beneficial goal that would exponentially benefit campus life.
The benefits that would result from a unified campus would be enormous. First off, it would create a more unified class and student population. Sociologists will often say that the best predictor of who will become good friends or form lasting relationships is simple proximity. A glance over the townhouses containing mostly seniors and comparing them to their freshmen room assignments will often yield stunning parallels. The unification of both campuses would increase class cohesiveness and the social life of the University by the simple human nature to befriend those around us.
Beyond the social benefits of a more concentrated dorming population, there are the logistical benefits. This is visible through the various events and speakers brought on campus. The convenience of being able to quite literally roll out of bed and attend these events or speakers will almost certainly increase the number of those who attend those events, giving a boom to campus life. Furthermore, the logistics of campus life would become much more student friendly, the bus would be mostly eliminated, and the food service would be able to concentrate their efforts and maybe even expand service and hours with more students around campus.
In short, the benefits of uniting both campuses are obvious and desirable; however, this would be a major undertaking from a logistical and financial standpoint. The first and most obvious problem is that the University would have to build quite a lot. They would have to replace all of the dormitory and office space on the Briarcliff campus.. This would clearly require several more buildings and a large amount of land. Besides the tens of millions of dollars necessary to build, there is the unfortunate thorn of the town of Pleasantville. It took several years to push the gym through the various political organs of village government; a project of such massive size as to require enough building space on Pleasantville to replace Briarcliff would quite certainly be a campaign in itself.
In short, although the process would be long and trying and may not be feasible until the University is in a stronger position, the unification of the campuses is a desirable and beneficial goal that would exponentially benefit campus life.
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