Numerous times throughout my time here at UNH, I have heard students complain about the conditions of various things provided to us, from the condition of a residence hall to probably the worst culprit, the music practice rooms in Botwinik. I think something that everyone needs to realize is that just because we pay a significant sum of money to attend UNH and certain goods and services are provided, some of the things provided are privileges. When these privileges are repeatedly destroyed or damaged, the university is less likely to see worth in replacing or repairing items, resulting in less quality items for us students to enjoy.

Since it is the most familiar to me, I’m going to begin with the Botwinik practice rooms. For those of you who don’t know, on the first floor of Botwinik, there are four practice rooms, two group rooms with a drum set, a PA system, guitar and bass amps, and two rooms with Yamaha keyboards. It’s great that we have this equipment to use, but unfortunately, a lot of equipment disappears or is broken by some of the people who use the rooms.

While talking to the music department faculty about the rooms, it came up that it seems like every month the equipment needs to be purchased to fix and restock the practice rooms with anything from new cables to new cymbals to hardware for the drum set. Plain and simple, this shouldn’t happen. If the rooms become too much of an issue, I am sure that we, the students who weren’t involved in the damage, are the ones who will feel the repercussions when the rooms are taken away.

Time to move on to another issue: the bathrooms across campus. While I would hardly say that I’ve walked into a bathroom on campus and seen horrific destruction in front of me, sometimes the bathrooms just feel a little gross. This is by no means a shot at facilities, as I have seen what the bathrooms look like when they’re clean. If students across the board are just a little more considerate when they make a mess with hundreds of paper towels on the floor or get water all over the sink, the bathrooms would be much cleaner at the end of the day.

I think my biggest issue is when people put paper towels in the drains of the sinks. What gives? If you drop a paper towel in the sink and it’s clogging the drain, remove it! Let me be perfectly clear in saying that bathrooms are a right, not a privilege, as they are clearly a necessity. I think it’s safe to say that the privilege is the cleanliness provided by facilities’ hard work.

There are far more examples of situations such as those listed above, but I think I’ve made my point. Take care of this campus. Every student here has the right to call this place home while attending, and very few people treat their homes like garbage, so be good and take care of campus! Privileges can be taken away, so don’t take them for granted.