Commuter Troubles on Campus

Editorial: School Review
written by Morgan Hough
10/02/2007

I’m sure many of you already know the history of UMass Lowell, but I’m going to tell the story of its birth anyway. Once upon a time in 1894, there was a school called the Lowell Normal School. A year later, another school across the river was born, a school known as the Lowell Textile School.

Although in the same town, the two schools were very different. The Normal School trained teachers and emphasized classes in humanities. The Textile School trained technicians and managers for the booming textile industry. I think anyone who has visited the two modern campuses can guess which school was where.

These two schools developed and grew and gradually they became known as Lowell State College and the Lowell Technical Institute. In 1975, a wonderful thing happened. The two schools merged and formed the University of Lowell. Even further down the road came a more important merger. In 1991, the school officially joined the UMass system and became the campus we know today.

I promise, that’s it for history lessons today. But what does all this have to do with us, the students of the new millennium? We might be the children of the internet, cell phones, and Halo, but we are very much like the students of 1895. We all go to the same University of Massachusetts Lowell, but sometimes it seems that there is much more than a river dividing the school.

UMass Lowell is a school of divisions. Even within our colleges, we don’t just have departments, we have “the Division of Sciences” and “the Division of Arts.” There’s the great divide between North and South, which has gotten to the point where I’ve heard many-a-freshmen on South mutter, “And they even have these, these tunnel things over there, it’s so scary!” When one campus thinks the other is “scary,” you know you have some unity problems on campus.
A larger, more general division is commuters versus campus residents. The campus isn’t very commuter friendly, to say the least. An attempt to see my friend in a dorm after 7 p.m. the other night was like trying to take a bottle of mouthwash on an airplane. The rift between commuters and campus residents only gets bigger if the school makes it a hassle for them to mingle.

The current administration has been doing some great things to bridge the divisions on campus, but perhaps they’re missing their mark. Homecoming seems like a good idea to promote University pride and togetherness, but the problem lies much deeper than even a tiara and a pony-ride can fix (yes, there will be pony-rides at Homecoming). A growing number of campus clubs have been complaining that it’s difficult to get students involved in anything. Sports events aren’t very well attended, and people are sneaking off campus to go to parties instead of enjoying the facilities on campus.

And viola! There’s the root of the problem. The facilities. We have two campuses of huge buildings, littered with classrooms and lecture halls, a scattering of couches and lounges, and yet on a Saturday evening, they are all dark. Some of the dining halls close down for the weekend, the student union closes early, even though it’s the perfect spot for some late night activities. The University can try to force school pride and unity with all the crowns it wants, but it would happen naturally if given the chance.

I transferred in to UML a couple years ago from a school that was very spread out. We had a lot of inter-dorm competition. After all, it took 20 minutes to walk to dorms across campus, so it was like walking to a different country. However, every Friday, the campus got together for a comedian. Not a local jokester, but a national-touring professional. Tuesdays would be karaoke, or battle of the bands. Weekend nights would be filled hockey games, tail-gate parties sponsored by the school, or talent shows. And I’m not talking a handful of people showing up, either. The whole campus, commuters and all, would turn up for these events. Hockey games created a slew of pro-school chants and really made you proud to be there.So maybe Homecoming will sew up the splits on campus and bring everyone together for a few hours. Perhaps things will be better now that hockey games are free for students. The new administration seems to be on the right track, so hopefully within a few years we can stop thinking with the minds of 1895 and be a unified University.