Nightmare on Rangeview Avenue

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Author: Linni Kral

The questionable beast we’ve all observed en route to Pauley or SAE finally has a name, Rangeview, and it’s one I already dread hearing.

The behemoth boasts 237 beds, an underground parking structure, classrooms/multi-purpose rooms and indoor courtyards. The website for Rangeview confirms the inclusion of a fitness center, and there will be a coffee cart by mid-spring. The campus is waiting with bated breath, expecting this superdorm to go above and beyond expectations, or to at least justify the fortune Oxy has spent building it. I’ve got news for you—it probably won’t.

When I came to Occidental as a transfer sophomore in 2006, those in my orientation group and I were seeking a sense of community. I was fleeing from DePaul University’s 24,000 student population—more specifically, I was fleeing the University Center. This 18-story dorm I called home as a frosh housed students from three local colleges and contained a laundry room, mailroom, cafeteria, exercise facility and arcade/game room. Did I mention each floor had its own lounge with a kitchen? Yeah. Sure, classes were held just a five-minute walk away, but students rarely had much reason to leave. Can you blame us? With so many people and so many activities in this glorified hotel, even the thrills of downtown Chicago couldn’t pull us away from our superdorm. So what makes the Occidental Administration think the Marketplace is going do this?

Anyone who walks through our quad at 12:30 p.m. on a Monday knows it could charm even the most disenchanted college student. No matter how many papers you have to do, when the sun is shining, the clubs are tabling and swaths of co-eds linger along the wall, our campus is downright irresistible. Several needs pull us there—dietary, academic, social and even postal. Without that pull, students will have much less need to visit the heart of campus and new students may cease to be enchanted by our cozy atmosphere. In fact, it will most likely cease to be cozy at all.

According to collegeboard.com, the student retention rate at Occidental currently exceeds DePaul’s. Oxy brags a 90 percent rate of returning sophomores, where DePaul claims only 83 percent. We pride ourselves on being ranked 36th on U.S. News and World Report’s list of America’s Best Colleges, while DePaul doesn’t even make that list (that means at least 122 schools rank higher than the Illinois-based Catholic institution). The factor behind these distinctions is heart. It’s really that simple.

Forget for just a minute how pissed you or your parents are about the rising costs of tuition or how suspicious you are of this money-sucking eyesore of a construction site plaguing the south side of campus. Think for just a moment about how many meetings you’ve attended in central campus, how many times you’ve walked through the quad, anxious for a package or anticipating that delicious carne asada plate. Imagine what will be lost when you no longer need to strut over chalked sidewalks, Thorne laid out in front of you while KOXY DJs provide a soundtrack for your delightfully cheesy college experience. Many factors play into that vibe, but the presence of students is the soul of it.

So when your crush from O-Chem lives in Rangeview and rarely sees the need to leave, good luck with your flirting strategy. When your presentation group can’t stop arguing over whether or not to meet in the Cooler or a snazzy new multi-purpose room, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There’s a slight possibility this dorm won’t divide our campus in two, but if the negative experience that led me to Oxy in the first place serves as any indicator, we may start seeing more people transferring from our school than to it.

Linni Kral is a junior Politics major. She can be reached at lkral@oxy.edu.

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