Summer school marks a difficult time for both students and faculty. Normally, we shouldn’t be in class, but many of us use the time to squeeze in those last few classes in order to graduate early (or late).
On one hand it’s nice to be on the Hilltop. The campus is as beautiful as always and the summer weather is great. On the other hand, classes are long and strenuous and many student services are limited or nonexistent.
Take the Dedman Center for Lifetime Sports for example. Sure it’s open, but if you aren’t enrolled in summer classes, you can’t get in without paying a fee. As if a hike in tuition and fees to pay for the building wasn’t enough, students who are in town but not in classes have to pay to use the facilities.
Ed Board thinks this is a rip-off.
Students should be considered part of the campus community at all times. Just because you aren’t taking summer classes shouldn’t limit your abilities to access student services.
An even bigger issue this summer is the availability of food services on campus, or lack thereof to be more precise.
The Umphrey Lee cafeteria is currently undergoing a huge renovation, and the food court located on the bottom floor of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center is closed. This leaves Mac’s Place, the Hughes-Trigg Market, with its Montague’s Deli, and the Java City located in the student center as the only places were food is available on campus.
While the number of people who would want access to these services is drastically reduced in the summer, the remaining open facilities are being run in such a manner that they are grossly inadequate.
The operating hours of the various facilities on campus does not coincide with the hours of summer classes. The market is open for a short stint from 6:30-8:30 a.m., but for the first few weeks of the Summer I Session, the Market did not open, when people where actually around that is, until 10:30. That has recently been changed to 10 a.m. What’s worse is that it closes at 2 p.m. Most summer classes begin at 10 a.m., some start as early at 9 a.m., so if you want to grab a quick snack from the Market before class, you’re out of luck.
What’s more frustrating is the limited hours Montague’s Deli is open. The deli opens at 10:30, that’s after classes start, and closes are 1:30, before classes that begin at noon are over. If you are taking summer classes from 10-2, you’re again out of luck.
SMU Dining Services should have taken a better look at the schedule for summer classes before setting their own schedule.
If the SMU Dining Services wants members of the SMU community to eat at their locations, they need to make it more convenient for us to use them.
