New campus adds to current $ woes
by Rawly Bransom, Sports Editor

   I look left. I look right. I look forward. Finally, I look back, but all I see is people. All I hear are rustling papers, clicking pens, deep sighs, occasional snores and the ever-present beating of hearts.
   My classes are claustrophobic nightmares. I feel like a sardine stuck in a can marked "double the amount for the same low price."
   I understand there is a budget shortfall and that many of my professors had to teach extra classes because of it. In fact, I respect them even more because of it.
   I understand TCC has a hiring freeze now, so the administration cannot help its professors at the moment. It's just basic economics after all; in economic down times, a company must trim employee numbers to maintain a normal profit margin.
   I even understand tuition and property taxes might have to be raised. The state all but cut many community colleges' throats, and that type of money has to come from somewhere to keep the system running.
   Yet, when I picked up my copy of The Collegian and read about the budget, I was both amazed and disturbed. With all the problems we have right now, probably the worst course we could take is to build anything to our existing campuses, or so I thought until I read the story.
   TCC created a fund from increased taxes collected specifically for the purpose of building a new campus, but where will the money for more staff, faculty and equipment come from?
   TCC cuts back classes on all campuses, stacks students into remaining classes like garbage heaps and then asks professors to take an additional class, yet it wants to build a new campus.
   Will teachers be pulled away from the ever-increasing horde of TCC students to populate this new downtown campus? Will the college transfer groundskeepers, bookkeepers, janitors, assistants and other staff members away too? Will our existing campuses become ghost towns with students wandering aimlessly from one standing-room-only class to the next?
   Wait, now I know! I hear the voices. I am sure these are the same voices that convinced administration to build a campus.
   "If you build it, they will come."
   Now all is clear. Teachers, staff members and equipment will be brought to this wonder of a school for free. Students who would not drive 15-20 minutes to NW, South or NE campuses will come by the thousands for reasons they cannot explain.
   This new campus will save us all. Tuition will drop, and everything will be better for having built this campus of dreams.
   "If you build it, they will come."
   I follow the voice so I can forever know the truthsÉ so I can see what the administration knows.
   Just as suddenly as my hopes had been given flight, they are destroyed by truth. All I see is a hand-held TV with Field of Dreams on the screen. My hopes are gone; there is no magic campus ... just an ever-worsening future for educational quality.