By Julia Matias

The University’s new “edge” campaign will help students find the five-year-old in them with these few simple steps: 1) locate appropriate roller coaster by calculating height on Disney-inspired signs, 2) sit in the crooked desks provided and fasten gum on the seat, 3) hold on tight as the assigned professor takes students to a head-swaying ride, and 4) proceed to one of the many liquid crystal display (LCD) screens on campus to find the pictures depicting outstretched arms and frozen yawns.

I honestly half expected my six-year-old brother and his first grade class to jump out of one of the new bright blue signs and yell out, “Peek-a-boo!” Little did I know that the University began accepting child prodigies! Can the happy meals not be overpriced like the rest of the food, please?

Isn’t it considerate of the administration to install, overnight, building signs, LCD screens, and whatever else there is to notice so as to avoid disturbing peace? Although, it is more considerate of them to altogether avoid asking students if we wanted “[our] retinas practically burned out by the obnoxiousness of these signs,” in the words of a fellow Pride on the new Facebook group, “Hofstra University is Not a Theme Park.”

I salute the University’s concern for all who are geographically challenged, and for all those who worried that our campus wrongly portrayed our nationwide arboretum title. But to all the big people in those offices, I ask, whose idea was it to think for the students? Better yet, who in the world is funding these new additions?

With tuition increasing eight percent each year and my scholarship shrinking, I am now in the habit of questioning whose pockets my money went to and which mall they are headed to (professors are probably wondering the same, as they are still quite underpaid). As a private institution that dreams of someday drinking tea with the society of Ivy Leagues, there is a need to upgrade facilities, strengthen faculty, and so forth.

There’s a need for new technology that will help Public Safety inform students of emergency situations. There will be new prospects when graduate and undergraduate students learn each other’s faces after the graduate dorm is built. The LCD screens in the Student Center will hopefully encourage Lackmann to stop wasting paper.

Building signs were required because not everybody can squint and read at the same time (and quite frankly, professors are tired of tardiness due to students getting lost).

All these improvements are understandable, but what portion of the funds is tuition and what portion is from donors? How much is spent on each new development?

I should have expressed earlier that I am actually in love with the University . The trees, flowers, and small campus setting seduced me into leaving California. Last year, an aspiring University professor gave a sample lecture, and students from class were able to voice opinions about the candidate.

Just this past Tuesday, a professor brought my class to judge the finalists in the University’s attempt to exhibit diversity on campus. Students are able to once again voice their opinions on which sculpture is best.

These opportunities, although small, create a large impact on how students view the University, and especially how students will share to others their impression of the University. There is no doubt that the administration takes some time to discover student opinion.

However, it’s the “minor” bonuses such as the blue signs, which happened overnight, that generate the most negative responses since they are unexpected and unwelcome. They destroy the very reason many students choose the University.

While some of these new projects seem unnecessary (do we really need $300 orange carts to help us move in?), others do seem practical. My wish is to know how much these additions cost, and to increase student body involvement in such decisions. It is, in fact, our money.

We can estimate, but that will only frustrate our wallets. When The Chronicle’s news editors attempted to find out how much the University spent on advertising last year, they were ignored. So, as reporters, they dug in and published their own estimate. Alas, they were met with angry phone calls from administrators. Is it so wrong to want to know how our money is spent?

So, my challenge to you, tuition-fueled administrators, is to let the student body become aware of expenses. If not, then let the student body express further our opinions about present and future developments. Let the students help you help them. Maybe then, and only then, will we all find a solution to the leaking ceilings and rusty showers of the dorms.

Congratulations on making Hofstra campus inviting, but if you want us to stay, then concentrate on the changes we actually do need.

Julia Matias is a junior psychology/speech communication student. You can email her at [email protected]

(Jesse Webster/ Jacqueline Hlavenka)