For those who have spent more than a semester at Mesa it’s no secret there have been a number of perplexing construction decisions. The division of the cafeteria into the C-Store and a cafeteria is just one example.
More recently is the construction going on around the outdoor parking lots. Ignoring the student services building, which is still under construction, there are a number of projects which have been halted while the semester progresses. The most observable example of this phenomenon is the mysterious steel posts (unfinished solar collectors) that have appeared in the lot encompassing the modular village and the lot near the tennis courts.
While understandable that complications arise when trying to perform a large scale construction project amidst a few thousand students it is nonsensical given the amount of pre-construction planning that goes into such a project that the more minor facets such as the solar collectors could not be planned in a manner (such as over a break) by which they could be completed before the heavy foot traffic that comes with the onset of a new semester.
Despite the hiccups things have not been all bad, crashers in particular may have noticed that a slew of new classes were just recently added. Without going into extended detail, the sudden surge of new classes stems from a management decision that turned what would have been a funding liability for Mesa College into an opportunity to create new classes for students. In a time when education in America and particularly California is under funded as a rule of thumb and colleges everywhere are being forced to make cut backs, it is refreshing to see this kind of cleverness on the part of the administration.
More impressively is the willingness of the faculty to accommodate the increase in students that these classes bring. This may sound perplexing but what must be understood in order to see why this is impressive is that Mesa College does not receive additional state funding for taking on more students. We as a campus are given a set amount of money to take care of all of the students who enroll, if more students than anticipated are permitted to enroll the amount of money granted to the campus does not change.
This is the type of character that the student body should be proud of because it really shows the dedication of the administration to the interests of the students rather than purely the preservation of the campus’ coffers in what as mentioned earlier is a time of great economic adversity for colleges throughout California. While is easy to blame the administration for its short comings, it must also be recognized that they do have the well being of students in mind and they have never stopped doing everything in their power to make this a better campus for everyone.
