Jerry ZurekIf you have tried to find a seat in the cafeteria and failed then you might agree that there are entirely too many new students at Cabrini this semester. The college has accepted 601 new students, including transfer students. If you think it is tough finding a place to park now, what will happen next September when the largest freshman class in Cabrini history attempts to cram over 500 cars on Cabrini’s crowded campus? It seems to me there will be many sticky situations and controversial issues for the resident students’ to hurdle.
On one end of the spectrum a large incoming class is a positive for the college as it means that Cabrini’s popularity is rapidly growing and more high school seniors want to be a part of Cabrini’s small campus.
The other end of the spectrum presents the negative factors of accepting such a large number of students. For many freshmen their large class means living in extremely tight quarters. Every single freshmen dorm-room is a triple, but that still was not enough room to fit everyone. So the college transformed the creepy Woodcrest basement into a few rooms then they turned nearly all the freshmen lounges into rooms to house a few more students. With students still needing to be housed, Cabrini made the Rooyman’s Center into an all male dorm which houses 18 boys. If that wasn’t bad enough they turned to Valley Forge for housing help and now a dozen boys live on their campus.
Although Cabrini clearly went to great lengths to have all the incoming students housed, I cannot help but wonder if such crowded living conditions will eventually push the freshmen away and subsequently compel them to transfer. Although losing a few of them would not exactly be a positive outcome, it might help the looming parking nightmare that awaits all resident students. Where does Cabrini intend on putting all these cars next year? With fewer parking spaces than ever, 533 additional cars next year will make parking spaces truly a hot commodity.
Now there are no extra beds to spare and absolutely no parking spots to salvage. On top of these concerns there is the exasperating feat of trying to find a seat in the cafeteria at lunch which has become worse than attempting to park on Residential Boulevard on a Thursday night.
This class has proven that Cabrini is simply trying to grow too much too fast. Cabrini is hastily replacing the trees and serene atmosphere for concrete and too many students. It appears that Cabrini is stuck in a never-ending-cycle; they want to accept more students but they don’t have enough beds for them so they accept too many students as a means to finance new residence halls like the West Hall and in the mean time the campus is overcrowded. By the time the new hall opens the incoming class is even bigger and one again the cycle begins as Cabrini tries to find more holes in the dorm walls to stuff students.
I think it is great that Cabrini’s popularity is spreading and more students want to be a part of the campus but I feel they have caused more harm than good and many more problems will rise from such a large class. Cabrini clearly did not think this decision through completely before they enrolled over 500 freshmen to an already overcrowded campus.
