As I write, I am staring out the third floor library window at the New Academic Building. Now that the exterior is mostly complete, we can see the final shape that years of hard work and millions of dollars have taken.

However, as I sit in our library, I am reminded that I need to leave soon because the building closes at 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays. Apparently Gustavus thinks that Friday and Saturday nights are better spent partying than studying. Earlier this morning, I learned that I could not pick up a package from the post office, which had arrived that day, because the post office is closed on Saturdays. On my morning walk around Ring Road, I was nearly clipped by a passing car because there was no sidewalk. The other day I had to avoid using a perfect article for my paper because Gustavus didn’t have access to that particular part of JSTOR. Last Thursday we had to find the one room in Old Main which had any technological support for our Finance Committee meeting.

As I look out at the New Academic Building, I think of all of the comparatively little things which could have received the time and financial support instead. These are the things that we accept on a day-to-day level because while they are too big to change, they are too small to get major attention. Fixing these problems would substantially improve not only student lives on campus but would make Gustavus a better institution overall.

Now, I am in no way saying that the New Academic Building shouldn’t have been built. I am just saying that there are a number of things that also deserve our attention. These things have consistently flown under the radar because they are too big for any one group on campus to handle but too small to warrant the attentions of a full committee. It’s much easier to marshal the efforts of an entire committee toward something like a building rather than something like a sidewalk.

Projects like these will always fly under the radar as long as we only care about the big things like renovations and new buildings. It’s time we look to improve what we have right now in addition to adding new things.

I am sure that you all remember the doughnut franchise Krispy Kreme. For a period of about a year it was one of the most popular franchises in the nation, and it expanded at a tremendous rate. However, they built too fast and too much, and the franchises began closing at almost the same rate they opened. We need to work on our foundational structures, as well as adding on, lest we overextend ourselves and end up just like Krispy Kreme.

It is time for us to take a long, hard look at the small issues on campus and resolve them with the same care and attention we give the large issues.

Let’s fill in our institutional cracks. Let’s resolve to finally give the care and attention to each issue, irrespective of its cost. Let’s put a sidewalk around Ring Road. Let’s make our institution fully handicap accessible. Let’s find a way to make Gustavus the best place that it can possibly be. And let’s do it through small improvements, not large ones.