The tower has been under construction for the past several months. I’ll be honest, from the moment I learned that it would be constructed, I was against it. I felt it was in an awkward space on campus, unneeded and a waste of money; however, I have recently been informed of the actual estimated cost of the tower.
According to fox13now.com, the tower’s estimated cost was $1.2 million. I just have to ask the question: Why? Why is this tower necessary for our campus? Did we not just build the beautiful Holland building right next door? Don’t we already have a clock that rings every hour? I’m sure the tower will be nice, but didn’t we just build two new things to beautify and improve our campus?
According to the Dixie State University website, in-state tuition costs a little more than $2,000 a semester, and we have a little more than 4,000 full-time, degree seeking, resident students. Let me reiterate in saying the tower has an estimated cost of $1.2 million. With that $1.2 million dollars you could have funded 500 students with full ride scholarships for a semester. That is 10 percent of the current full-time, degree seeking, resident students. You could have funded 250 students for an entire year. You could have funded about 70 people for all four years of their education. You could have funded a combination of these options. Instead, we have a tower — a clock tower sitting next to a brand new building and just down the way from a building that already chimes out the time.
This is not a letter of angst because I didn’t obtain a scholarship. This is, however, a letter of angst for those who didn’t receive one because of this tower. This is a letter of angst against using university funds on an unneeded, expensive tower when we could have been using it to improve the buildings we will actually enter into at this brand new university (read: the old science building and the McDonald building). Obviously, there is not a lot that can be done now. The tower is near semi-completion and there is no way to re-obtain those funds. However, in the future, I would like to see a greater sense of responsibility as you, and whatever other committee, use the school funds to improve the quality of higher education of this new university.
Bryan Adam
Biology major
St. George
