BY CORBIN MCGUIRE, OPINIONS EDITOR
Bellarmine University offers a large selection of housing, dining and recreational activities for its residential students. But each year many Bellarmine students will choose to commute to school to save money or to live with their families.
When visiting Bellarmine’s official website, non-residential students will be happy to find a note from the assistant dean of students and director of student engagement, Patrick Englert, addressed to commuter students.
In the note, students are encouraged to utilize the Pit Stop, which is located on the first floor of Horrigan Hall.
While Bellarmine offers a welcoming environment with ample resources for commuters, commuters agree that the Pit Stop could use some renovations.
“I’m not sure that it really qualifies as a commuter station. It’s more of a microwave and the occasional stapler hidden in a back closet,” said senior Haley Adams.
For commuter students who are unable to go back to a dorm room in the case they have forgotten something, supplies like staplers are vital to have on campus. Though for some commuters, this issue is larger than a failure to provide adequate supplies.
“The commuter station is pretty laughable,” Senior Mitchell Dietrich said. “There is a sign on the refrigerator that warns students that anything left inside will be removed at the end of the week, but the same box of pizza has been left in there for a solid month.
“The sink is often filled with dishes and bits of somebody’s lunch from a week ago. The soap is a sad-looking partially crushed bottle that doesn’t even work unless you ask someone else to help you. The stapler is broken and sometimes can’t even be found.”
While the unsanitary nature of the Pit Stop may affect the time a commuter spends there, some students also see the station as a missed opportunity to offer information to commuters on campus.
“It’s strange to me that commuters are currently relegated to a cubbyhole in the student center. Maybe with Centro it’ll be better,” Kayla Stephenson said. “But as a senior with three years of being on campus under my belt, I find it difficult to stay involved on campus; I can’t imagine what it’s like for freshmen who don’t know anyone.”
Some students even consider the lack of renovations on the Pit Stop to be a reflection of Bellarmine’s attitude towards commuters as a whole.
“The commuter station provides the bare minimum of amenities for Bellarmine’s commuter students,” Dietrich said. “Especially after the renovations made during Centro’s construction, the entire space has been reduced to a nearly useless, dim room that can only really be used as a place to hideaway from other people in Horrigan.
“I think that more effort should be put into making the commuter station actually useful to Bellarmine’s commuter students. Currently, it stands as a pretty blatant indication of the way that Bellarmine treats its non-residential population.”
Some commuters find themselves avoiding the use of the commuter station entirely due to its appearance.
“I personally don’t use the commuter station much and have only used it once or twice for the stapler,” Junior Kiana Benoff said. “However, the times that I have been there, it’s looked really dark and just kind of drab.”
Other commuters explain ways in which the station could be a more inviting location on campus.
“There are some things that could be done to improve the commuter station, chief among them being to simply clean it and actually make sure that leftover food is thrown away and dealt with,” Dietrich said.
“A working stapler, relevant pamphlets and news, and better lighting could also help to make it a more functional place for commuters.”
It should be a priority for the university that commuting students are able to feel at home in a space designated for commuters on campus. And these students are not a minority as only “43 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 57 percent of students live off campus,” according to usnews.com.
“I know it’s not a huge space, but commuters want to feel like they have a place on campus” Benoff said.
If Bellarmine is to continue to retain commuter students, changes need to be made to ensure the Pit Stop offers both efficiency and comfort to students living off campus.
The fridge in the Pit Stop overflows with
bagged lunches and month-old pizza despite the sign on the outside
that clearly states that all leftover food will be disposed of at the
end of each week. Photo by Corbin McGuire.