The first year experience can vary drastically based on which dorm you are placed in. Gooch-Dillard has singles, Old Dorms have a convenient location and New Dorms have luxury. There are a couple dorms that are forgotten, however. They are tucked away between Gooch-Dillard and New Dorms and directly across from the stadium. I am referring to, in fact, Courtenay, Dunglison and Fitzhugh, colloquially known as CDF. These are the worst dorms on Grounds and in the spirit of egalitarianism, students living here should receive a discount or at least not be disturbed by the creation of a useless bridge.
Courtenay, Dunglison and Fitzhugh have a variety of nicknames, from the straightforward “Motel Courtenay” to the sadder “Budget Inn,” but I have a personal favorite. The origin of this nickname stems from when my roommate-to-be came up to me at Orientation and told me he had gone to see where we were going to be living next year. I asked him what he thought of it and he looked me right in the face and said, “It’s a sh**-stain.” The name stuck, and now when anyone asks where I live, I reply that I live in the “sh**-stain” across from the stadium. The name so adequately describes it that usually it is immediately recognized and pinpointed.
CDF residents paid $5,670 for the 2014-15 school year. Old and New Dorms residents paid $5,670 for the 2014-15 school year. This discrepancy is unfair because administrators are making people pay the same amount for different qualities of service. It amounts to a subsidy for those people in the newer and nicer dorms by those first-years in the cheaper dorms. Instead, Housing and Residence Life should reduce prices for those in CDF and increase them for everyone else to offset the loss in revenue.
While every other dorm has its advantages, CDF has none. It doesn’t have the air conditioning or singles that Gooch-Dillard has nor the air conditioning and luxury of New Dorms. CDF also lacks the convenience of being a walkable distance to class, nor does it have a convenient bus stop. To further exacerbate the situation, there are no study areas or rooms made for working, which means I regularly do have to go to the library, which is a 25-minute hike if I am going to Clemons.
CDF is old, moldy and barely habitable. Often times I find myself not being able to drink water out of the tap because of the hardness of it, other times I am frightened by the opaque character of both the water from the tap and the woods behind the dorm.
Furthermore, there are no laundry facilities in all of CDF, which means that to do laundry, it must be lugged all the way to Gooch through the woods. The woods are a dangerous place and many a time have I seen a stumble or a slip lead to clothes on the ground for some hapless CDF resident. To make matters worse, picking up mail and packages requires trekking to Cauthen and Shannon.
Rather than taking pity on our poor souls, the University pushes us to the edge. First it was construction on the newly named Gibbons Dorm that regularly woke up everyone within a half-mile radius at 8-10 in the morning. Now, to rub salt in the wound, the University is building a bridge to make travel for the residents of Gooch-Dillard easier. We have been warned that there will be “loud and disruptive work [which] will occur between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. The contractor may be on site prior to and after those hours.” We can further anticipate “noise from equipment operation, backup alarms and truck traffic. Site work also creates dust.”
There is a certain advantage to living in CDF — but it is only that its suite-style living is conducive to a high bonding experience with the people in the suite with you. My fellow columnist Brennan Edel wrote an excellent column on this aspect of suite-style living earlier this semester.
However, this is little condolence to the uncountable hours wasted commuting and the zillions of tiny nagging irritations of living in CDF. Rather than giving Gooch a path for their convenience, give CDF peace and quiet. Give CDF a discount or at least some sort of advantage in Housing or Dining because there is a long list of complaints that has been silently borne throughout the year. Either that or don’t build the bridge — because this is one inconvenience too far for an already downtrodden group.
Sawan Patel is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at s.patel@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
PARTING SHOT: Does this even matter?
By Jacob Tisdale | 13 hours agoIndividuals and communities can use sports to inspire, to hold space, to heal, to break molds, to change narratives, to honor faith or to come home.
PARTING SHOT: Sometimes it’s okay to fake a smile
By Alexandra Holmes | YesterdayI surrounded myself with people who were so enthusiastic about the University and its potential, that after a while, it was impossible not to feel their passion and their convictions rub off on me.
PARTING SHOT: Girl, what did you expect?
By Cecy Juárez | 2 days agoAdvocate for yourself unabashedly, even and especially when you feel like you don’t belong.
