Spring Break
Student sheds light on lack of windows in classrooms
Kirk Cooper
Issue date: 2/5/08 Section: OPINION
While there is something distinctly charming about the pale green glow of fluorescent lighting, God invented the sun for a reason. We aren't vampires or Sand People from Star Wars. Exposure to sunlight will not immediately kill us.
So why is this university mortally afraid of windows?
Here are a few fun facts. During the past three semesters at this school, I have taken 23 classes. Of those, 18 classes - 75 percent - have taken place in looming, windowless rooms with whitewashed walls, much like the holding tanks in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Three classes had windows, and I don't remember the other two classes very well. My eyelids fused together by that time from lack of use. I spent about three weeks navigating the bottom floor of the General Academic Building by screaming at the walls and waiting for the echoes to bounce back.
We claim to provide our students with a conducive learning environment, but I've spent most of my undergraduate career in classrooms that look like places where the CIA could have waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. And there are strip clubs with more windows than Wooten Hall.
We have a very real opportunity for change right now. Everyone's getting excited about Masters Hall coming down, and so they should. While this campus won't get to see a Las Vegas-style implosion replete with Wayne Newton and white tigers, seeing a building torn down is always fun.
But what really matters is what goes up in its place. Right now, our campus looks like a Cubist tried to give birth to a university but gave up halfway through, and windows are few and far between. Maybe the bomb shelter look was hip in the '60s and '70s when those pesky Reds had scary atomic weapons aimed straight for Denton, but the Cold War ended a long time ago.
Nowadays, light is cool, and using natural light would help cut down electricity costs. The Environmental Education, Science & Technology building is one of the most energy-efficient complexes on campus partially because it has giant windows to let light shine through. If we went off that design, NT could save some spare change for a rainy day. (Not that we're worried about saving money or anything. After all, that's what tuition is for!)
So why is this university mortally afraid of windows?
Here are a few fun facts. During the past three semesters at this school, I have taken 23 classes. Of those, 18 classes - 75 percent - have taken place in looming, windowless rooms with whitewashed walls, much like the holding tanks in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Three classes had windows, and I don't remember the other two classes very well. My eyelids fused together by that time from lack of use. I spent about three weeks navigating the bottom floor of the General Academic Building by screaming at the walls and waiting for the echoes to bounce back.
We claim to provide our students with a conducive learning environment, but I've spent most of my undergraduate career in classrooms that look like places where the CIA could have waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. And there are strip clubs with more windows than Wooten Hall.
We have a very real opportunity for change right now. Everyone's getting excited about Masters Hall coming down, and so they should. While this campus won't get to see a Las Vegas-style implosion replete with Wayne Newton and white tigers, seeing a building torn down is always fun.
But what really matters is what goes up in its place. Right now, our campus looks like a Cubist tried to give birth to a university but gave up halfway through, and windows are few and far between. Maybe the bomb shelter look was hip in the '60s and '70s when those pesky Reds had scary atomic weapons aimed straight for Denton, but the Cold War ended a long time ago.
Nowadays, light is cool, and using natural light would help cut down electricity costs. The Environmental Education, Science & Technology building is one of the most energy-efficient complexes on campus partially because it has giant windows to let light shine through. If we went off that design, NT could save some spare change for a rainy day. (Not that we're worried about saving money or anything. After all, that's what tuition is for!)
Be the first to comment on this story