Adios, RU

Being that my college career is coming to an end, I felt it would be appropriate to use my final post as a sort of farewell to the university that has been the subject for my postings this past semester.

I want to go ahead and thank Rowan University for having so many things wrong with it that I was able to write two posts every single week for the entire semester, and never run out of ideas. While I do hope that they address some of the issues and problems I brought up, I just want to say that this place really isn’t all that bad, and I am really going to miss it when I leave.

I had a great time writing the blog. I got to vent on all the stuff that bugged me about this place, and all of the good and bad feedback I received helped me improve my writing. While I am not going to continue to update this blog, I am going to use it as a sort of a stepping stone in my career as a journalist.

Rowan Boulevard

Perhaps one of the most exciting things to happen in the history of Rowan University was the announcement of Rowan Boulevard this past year. New housing units, a hotel, and a Barnes and Noble bookstore are some of the highlights of this $100 million project, but finding information regarding what exactly is official, and where exactly it is going, is hard to come by. We here at Rowan Pains decided to sort through all the clutter and provide you, our beloved reader, with the information that you really want to know, in an easy-to-read format. You’re welcome.

Barnes & Noble Bookstore- Barnes & Noble will be taking over operation of the Rowan Bookstore starting in July. Once their two-story, 36,000-square-foot building is completed, they will be moving there. The new building will be configured like a standard Barnes & Noble and will carry textbooks and Rowan apparel as well. There will also be a 6000 sq ft Starbucks within the facility, which will occupy a section of the first floor and include an outdoor patio and separate entrance to accommodate late night customers. The new bookstore is expected to open in time for the 2009 fall session.

New Apartment Complex- The new apartment complex will be constructed diagonally across from Landmark, on the corner of Rt. 322, and will be completed in two stages. The first stage of 564 beds will be completed in August of 2009, and the rest of the complex a year later. There will be four-single occupancy bedrooms per unit and each unit will feature its own kitchen with two bathrooms.These two, four-story buildings will have 28 one-bedroom units and 214 four-bedroom suites that will accommodate a total of 884 students. Both the one-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments have a kitchen, and an eating and living room area, but the four-bedroom apartments will have two bathrooms instead of one. There will also be exercise and weight rooms, meeting rooms, laundry facilities and a Public Safety satellite office contained inside. The entire apartment complex is slated to be complete by August 2010.

Holiday Inn Express- This 100 room hotel is going to be located just west of the new apartment complex. The hotel will feature separate meeting space, accommodating up to 250 guests, for banquets and seminars and will be equipped with a state of the art business center, wireless hi-speed internet and flat screen televisions. It will also include a full service restaurant with a liquor license. For more information, click here.

What many people don’t know is that Rowan Boulevard, where the Barnes & Noble, apartment complex and Holiday Inn Express will be located, is only a portion of what is to come. The “Master Plan“, which includes the $100 million Rowan Boulevard phase, is a $300 million project that will include the designation of West High Street as a retail and professional services area and East High Street as an arts and entertainment district, and plans to create 125 new retail stores and restaurants, and more than 400 new local jobs when it’s all said and done. Though everything included in the Rowan Boulevard phase is scheduled to be completed August of 2010, the entire Downtown Redevelopment project will not be finished for an upwards of about 10 years.

Head on over to Downtown Glassboro for further information and updates.

“I can’t find a spot.”

If you have ever heard, spoken, or thought this sentence, or any variation of this sentence, there is a good chance that you commute to Rowan University.

I live on campus, and have the entire time I have been here, but to those of you who commute, I feel for you. I really do. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone complain about parking in class, or have seen students walk into class 20 minutes late because they couldn’t find a parking spot. If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone illegally parked because there was no spots left, I’d have at least $1.30, heck, maybe even $1.40. Who knows!

So what plans does the university have to fix this growing problem? None! At least none that anyone knows about. You’d think they would address an issue that is causing hundreds of students to be late to class, a class which cost that student roughly $1,000 to attend, relatively quickly. The thing is, this problem has been out of hand for years and they still have yet to do something about it.

As you are all well aware, Bosshart Hall is being demolished and will be gone sometime after graduation this year. What some of you may not know is that it is being replaced with a small park. You know, the place with benches and trees that you can take your girlfriend to for a nice picnic. Dumb. I think some parking spots for our commuters is just slightly more necessary right now than a place to lay on a blanket and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If I didn’t know better, it would seem to me that this university really doesn’t care about its commuters getting to class on time. If it did, wouldn’t they have plans for more parking spots?

Wi-Fi?

Is it just me, or is anybody else having problems accesing Rowan’s wireless internet? Is it even available everywhere on campus? I am assuming we have it in our townhouse, being that in the beginning of the year I came home to a random guy installing some sort of device in our downstairs utility room, which he said was for the wireless internet. Now I am pretty savvy when it comes to computers, but i’ll be damned if I can get this wireless internet to work on my laptop. I keep getting this same error over and over again which eventually led me to give up. I even decided to type “Wi-Fi” and all the variations of the word into the “rowan knowledgebase” over at Rowan website’s handy-dandy technology toolbox, the “online tools for all your technology needs @ Rowan”, but absolutely nothing came up. Big surprise. The more I try to use Rowan’s website for anything, the more worthless I realize it is.

I know I only have about 3 more weeks here and I don’t even need wirless internet at this point, but it’s not about that anymore. I just want to get it to work just so I can say I bested the elusive Rowan Wi-Fi.

We Want More Tacos

I was in the Marketplace the other day, and 360 Degrees was serving tacos-the line was wrapped around the entire stand, the whole time I was there. Obviously, kids like tacos, and are sick and tired of burnt burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches with unmelted cheese. How about serving tacos more often, since we actually want them? You always hear the school declaring that they strive to better serve us, so why does it seem that they never actually take any action? They even have an area where they collect feedback from students- do they read these? I’m sure I am not the first person to say that there needs to be food served more often that kids actually want to eat, like tacos and chicken nuggets. Three years I have gone to Rowan, and all three years they have had the same crappy burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches that nobody ever eats. How about investing in a little thing called change?

Triad is a Prison / Dump

Here is a link to the article I wrote for The Whit last semester about Triad being a dump. I was going to post something about Triad here, but why re-write what I have already written? Plus, being that I am a proud supporter of the newspaper, I figure I’ll give them at least a few more hits.

Rowan Radio Is For Your Parents

I am a college student. I am a young, hip college student, so I want to listen to young and hip music. You would think that our very own college radio station, 89.7 WGLS-FM would cater to young and hip college students like myself, but that isn’t the case. That isn’t the case at all.

Here’s the fact- Rowan Radio caters to old people. Frank Hogan, the general manager of Rowan Radio, has stated that the average listener is 45 years of age or older. Why? I couldn’t be exactly sure, but it could have something to do with the fact that the only time they play rock and pop music from today, is from 11 p.m – 1 a.m. The rest of the time, they are playing music from the 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s. The last time I checked, the majority of college students weren’t even alive during these years. Ok, most of us were alive in the 80′s, but not until the late 80′s, and none of us even knew what music was at that age. Plus, the 80′s don’t count. Nobody listens to music from the 80′s. Everybody knows that.

Student Survey

I think it is safe to say that by now, anyone who has visited this blog recently has a pretty good understanding of my stance on the food here at Rowan University. So there I was one brisk spring evening, sitting at my computer when I thought to myself, “Hey, I wonder what other student’s feelings are on the matter.” Could I be the only person on campus who has such heinous thoughts about our food? Impossible. That’s when it hit me: I am going to ask a bunch of kids- a good 50 at least- and see what they think about the grub served here, what they would like to see done differently, or what they feel should stay the same, then list the results here for my faithful, dedicated readers to see. So without further ado, I present to you Rowan Pains’ very first Student Survey: Operation Rowan Rations. (Rations is another word for food. I wanted to use some alliteration in my title. Sorry.)

322 Is A Death Trap

I was just reading the latest post over at the RU Crime Blotter about the condition of Jenn Fitzpatrick, the student who got hit by the truck on 322, and it reminded me of something; 322 is a death trap. There are only a few designated spots for people to cross on this road, and with the hectic life of a student, these spots aren’t always the quickest way to get to where you need to be. So obviously, people are going to be crossing wherever is best for them, being that there is enough space between the cars for them to run across without getting plowed. Well, this is a problem. 322 is a busy road, and there are thousands of kids crossing this road every single day. Something needs to be done, and I think that something is more spots for students to cross safely. A great idea would be to construct a few overpasses so that students never have to wait for a break in traffic to cross. Let’s face the facts here people, distractions are everywhere. One little mistake can result in a serious accident. The speed limit is only 30 MPH, but I can’t count how many times I’ve seen cars speeding by so fast that the wind nearly knocks me over. Even if drivers obey the speed limit, if you get hit by a car going 30 MPH you are going to be in some trouble.

To my knowledge, Fitzpatrick was the only person to be hit by a vehicle on 322 (this year, anyway), and as far as I am concerned that is one too many. As long as students used them, overpasses would eliminate the risk of any more accidents on 322, and would provide a way for people to cross the road without having to wait.

Other Schools Have Amazing Food

This is just disheartening.  I was recently emailed a link to this site, which writes about all sorts of amazing foods served at schools around the country, and it honestly made me upset. I literally got up and stomped my feet like a ten year-old girl whose mom just told her she couldn’t sleep over her friends house because it was a school night and she had homework to do. Why couldn’t Rowan be kind enough to reward its hardworking students with such delicious cuisine? I then began to ponder what it would be like to just get done taking an arduous exam, then washing my miseries away with some lobster, or perhaps a nice, juicy slice of rib-eye steak.

Of course, some of these school’s food options are a little ridiculous, but seriously, Sodexho?  I understand that nothing is cheap these days, but I’m sure with the amount we pay for tuition these days, Rowan can afford something a little bit better than Sodexho.