Winter in Hillsdale can be summed up with one word: trudging. Other things happen — students study and relax and eat and sleep — but trudging pervades everything else. So why don’t the side doors of the Grewcock Student Union unlock?
Every day at 10 p.m., the doors of the union are locked, and the only way into the building is through the front entrance. Anyone coming from the library or east lawn is out of luck. Those card readers don’t work.
It seems to me the height of cruelty. Each door has a card reader — a reader that once worked! — and no sign indicates that, after 10 p.m., the inviting-looking red light, waiting to receive a student ID, is as useful as the brick that surrounds it.
Any student unused to late nights up the hill (they exist) sees the light and knows the drill. An ID is offered, and received with a beep. But the door remains locked. Try again, it must have been a glitch. And again, maybe you weren’t fast enough. Nothing.
This drama plays out constantly, and no recourse exists but to trudge — more — up the steps. Those doors don’t work either, but you can try as they laugh at you. Into the snow you go, where pilgrims before you have already carved a path to the front door.
I can’t think of any good reason that these card readers don’t work. I assume it’s ignorance, and I call upon those responsible to fix these doors! There’s no great moral hazard and no need to storm the president’s office. This is a small thing, but the small things make a difference.
We’re stressed, we’re tired, and we’re trudging. Make our nights go a tiny bit smoother.
