Ernie Davis was known for his dedication, speed and the way he made quick work of defenses. However, the construction of the dormitory bearing his name has been anything but an "Express" job.
With construction that has been underway since February 2008, it's puzzling to see workers still completing renovations on the building that has been home to hundreds of students for over a month.
While you would be hard-pressed to find a resident with a complaint about the rooms or lounges in Ernie Davis, that doesn't mean they don't have other reasons to be unhappy. When they signed up for, or were assigned, living arrangements in the brand new residence hall there were tons of perks to the building that made it much more appealing. At the top of the list were a state-of-the-art fitness facility and a convenient dining hall that would top all other campus facilities. Over the course of construction, various completion dates were announced, only to be pushed back over and over again. The current hope is that the gym (and accompanying convenience store) will be finished by semester's end. But I'm not holding my breath. The dining hall is said to be ready to serve students by spring semester - hardly what many upperclassmen had expected when they signed up for singles in this hyped-up building.
"I had planned on rolling out of bed and getting breakfast easily in the morning," said Hayley Lloyd, a sophomore television, radio and film major. "Instead I have to walk to Haven or Shaw. I also have to walk through rainstorms to get to the gym. It hasn't been what I expected it to be."
As a resident of Watson Hall, I can sympathize with the wet walks across campus just to get a little exercise in.
While it's encouraging to see construction workers making progress through the big glass windows of Ernie Davis Hall, I find it hard to swallow that the entire building wasn't completed before students arrived on campus this year. The idea of freshmen moving into their new surroundings in hard hats while their new home was still being constructed doesn't seem too welcoming to me.
With tentative deadlines of "hopefully before the end of this semester" and "beginning of Spring Semester," all SU students can do is cross their fingers and hope that there isn't another delay waiting to happen. Until then, residents can enjoy trudging through the wind and eventual snow in an effort to nourish themselves and keep themselves in shape. That's not exactly getting what you paid for.
Michael Bradley is a sophomore English major. His columns appear weekly and he can be reached at mrbradle@syr.edu
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