Everywhere you look at NEIU, it seems as if students are being given less than what they’ve paid for. Whether it’s a lack of available classes, inadequate access to food options on campus, a library that has limited hours, or a physical education complex that sold its soul to a wandering semi-professional basketball team, NEIU students can walk anywhere on campus and see their educations watered down and shortchanged.
A group of seniors who are trying to graduate with minors in Latin American Studies found out the hard way that a class they need to graduate, LLAS 301, wasn’t being offered this coming spring. Never mind the fact that a supposed Latino-serving institution doesn’t have a major in Latino studies; let’s examine the fact that the class needed to finish the minor wasn’t even being offered for spring 2007.
This situation has a happy ending, since enough complaints were received to get the class offered next spring for those seniors to graduate on time. But why do we have to complain before action is taken?
Then there’s Sodexho Food Services. To be sure, the campus cafeteria staff is composed of some very nice, hard-working people. That does not mitigate the fact that on a campus where the operating hours are 8 a.m. to10 p.m., Sodexho keeps the cafeteria open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. And by the way, between 2 and 4 p.m., they don’t serve any hot food; if you want something besides a Greasa Hut pizza or soup, you’ll have to leave the premises to find it. Also, Sodexho doesn’t provide any food service to the satellite campuses, leaving students at CCICS and El Centro to eat vending machine food entirely.
Let’s get to a subject that strikes at the heart of academics: our library. After examining the hours of neighboring North Park University, it seems like administrators at NEIU don’t believe that students actually use the library. North Park’s fall break hours, which are reduced because students are not in class, are still more extensive, with the Brandel Library closing at midnight Monday through Thursday during break.
Even when hours are extended for finals, the Ronald Williams Library closes at 10:30 pm. These discrepancies in hours are despite that fact that North Park has 10,000 fewer students than Northeastern.
Last, but not least, is the story of the Chicago Rockstars and why students truly don’t matter to many at this university. Students were not consulted or considered when the decision was made to allow the team to practice and play at NEIU for a year. The main gym now closes at 8 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays so that a semi-pro basketball team that does not pay tuition and fees can occupy our gymnasium to practice.
Yet Friday night, when the gymnasium and the Physical Education Complex are usually closed at 7 p.m., the gym will be open for the Rockstars. Why wasn’t the gym kept open on Friday nights prior to this for the students to use?
You remember the students, don’t you? We’re still here because we can’t graduate without the classes we need, we’re starving because the vending machines are out of food and Sodexho operates on banker’s hours, almost the same hours that library operates on so we can’t study, and when we want to play some ball to blow off steam, a bunch of seven-foot guys who don’t go to school here are taking away our gym space.
Just give us what we’ve paid for, what we’ve earned. Stop putting everything in the world ahead of the needs of the students you are paid to educate.