School daze

The news has been reporting that the economy is slowly on the mend. Unemployment is apparently lower than it’s been since 2008. Lots of good, positive things are happening all over. Generally awesome, yeah? Yeah.

Another really awesome thing happened recently, and lucky for us it happened to Portland State. An anonymous donor gifted $8 million to the School of Business Administration.

Boasting an impressive 3,000 students, the SBA is the largest business school in Oregon. It’s supposedly outgrown its current facilities, so the plan is to use a portion of the gift to renovate and expand existing property and buildings. According to The Oregonian, the school is expecting another $40 million from the Legislature, plus an additional $20 million the school will have to raise itself.

SBA Dean Scott Dawson explained to The Oregonian that after renovations and expansion the school will be housed entirely in one building, which will “for the first time allow us to create a true business community.”

If this goes through, construction is set to begin in January 2015 and end by fall 2016.

This is a really cool thing for the school. PSU’s business program has been ranked among the top business schools by The Princeton Review and the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education. So this whole gift thing is really nice for the program and all the students who will get something out of it.

Last fall I had a professor who said that, annually, minorities studies classes drew in more students than any other program. It’s really awesome that so many people are interested in things like women’s studies, Chicano studies and everything else under that minority banner. However, many of the classes offered in those programs are located in the Extended Studies Building. The offices for these programs are located there as well.

For those who are unaware, the XSB is across the Park Blocks, by the Vue Apartments. It’s a quaint little building with lots of old-fashioned windows, two floors and a nondescript brick facade. It’s also a bit problematic: There’s no elevator and hence no handicap access to the second floor.

On top of all that, the building doesn’t have remotely adequate temperature control: It’s stuffy in spring, too hot in summer and not warm enough in winter. Classes in there can be unpleasant just because of the surroundings and weather.

What I’m trying to get at here is that the SBA shouldn’t be the only program getting attention. PSU is a public university funded by taxes, tuition and state allocations. With a student body as diverse as the city itself—in this case, “diverse” meaning with varying areas of interest—every program should be just as important as the next.

Now, in terms of the huge, wonderful gift the business school received, by all means put that to good use. It was a gift given with a specific purpose in mind by an alum of the business school, therefore it should be used to further the business school’s interests.

My gripe is that other programs should be gettin’ some love too. I’d love it if there were enough money to make every building accessible, with adequate temperature controls and all kinds of upgrades.

I’m an English major. PSU’s program, though it does have some really amazing faculty and classes, isn’t the top English program in Oregon. I gave that up in order to live in a city I loved. Personal musings aside, it’d be cool if the English department got a multimillion dollar gift—more funding would help it beef up its status, provide more diverse classes, hire more adjunct professors or something along those lines.

If this sounds bitter, that’s because it is—but just a little. I’m truly happy for the SBA, because obviously they’re doing something to cultivate students’ interest. Then again, so do many other great programs on campus. To that end, Oregon Legislature, share the love. And by love I mean money.