Worth It?

The move back to Fairfield at the beginning of the school year is always heralded by new changes – some for better, some for worse. This year, students were welcomed back with new signs labeling each building across campus, including the three new residence halls. In addition, we FINALLY have paved pathways from Loyola Hall to the BCC. It’s about time they acknowledged that even if they reseed the grass to discourage foot traffic, we’re STILL going to take the most direct path to where we need to go, whether it’s paved or not. Kudos to Fairfield for making a simple but fantastic (and long-awaited) change.

Despite the positive addition of new signs to campus buildings, they seem to have forgotten a few – where are the signs telling us where we’re allowed park? With all of these new parking changes, it’s still frustrating that there are no signs informing students while they attempt to correctly park in the confusing lots, especially at the Quick Center . We don’t want to get ticketed due to a confusingly highlighted map that’s meant to explain our parking restrictions. With the extra money we’re being charged to have a car on campus – $120 for the year, up from $80 in previous years – you’d think the University would have enough money to put up some informative signs…but we’ve yet to see them.

As for the juniors lucky enough to be living in the apartments at 51 McInnes and 47 Mahan, they get to pay the same price to park their cars across campus behind Jogues Hall, and then walk back home. Worth the money? The jury’s still out.

Fairfield University has always prided itself on being a welcoming community, always ready to invite new people in and engaging them in the fun events on campus – yet now, with our new Guest Pass rules, this is quickly disintegrating. When we want a friend to come visit us on campus, they are limited to staying only a few nights. And if, for some crazy reason they forget their Guest Pass or let it accidentally fall out of their pocket– they are given a hundred dollar fine! Because college isn’t expensive enough…although we’re sure the University is going to love the extra income!

Another failure in communication for Fairfield – not everyone even received the email about the changes in Guest Passes. As far as we’ve heard, the townhouses didn’t get the email . How are students supposed to be prepared for these new changes if they’re not even aware changes have been made? We realize there have been a lot of changes recently on campus, but please – get the communication together, Fairfield. We want to make this a successful year, and we can’t do it if we don’t know what’s going on.