I remember the first time I was confronted with what a need was and what a want was, and why one came before the other.

It was a text book in second grade I think and it was a social studies class. It was illustrated and it had a diagram of pictures of things that were needs, and that things that are wants. Needs you have to have in order to survive and took priority, wants are things that humans tend to have a desire for, but they won’t kept you fed, clothed, and sheltered like needs will.

Over the past half decade, really ever since 2020, our University has been spending a lot on it’s wants and putting it’s needs on the backburner. We would call people who do that a deadbeat, but in politics and often in big education, we call them “Senator”, “Congressman”, “Chancellor” “Dean” or “President.”

A couple of weeks ago, Whitley Hall, a landmark of East Texas A&M University, was evacuated because a few people flushed the toilets and took some showers. You know, basic things you do in a bathroom, and it flooded half the building. Why?

Because the school administration, this one, the previous one, and the ones before that did NOTHING to fix a building they know needed repairs.

Ive been to Whitley though it has been a minute. My ex-girlfriend lived there in 2006 and I spent a lot of time with her in her dorm. To me, the building was a little aged, but not awful, but that was 20 years ago. However even at that time, I could see the building needed some serious TLC and fixing up.

That however, cannot happen, because we don’t have enough dorms to house students, so students get stuck in subpar dorms to accomodate what we do have available but end up leaving because their housing situation is so awful. Its not just them. Aside from the Phase Dorms and Pride Rock, Whitley, Prairie Crossing, and the New Pride Apartments, the other ones just don’t do anything.

When you are a college student, you have one thing to worry about, and that is “how do I finish this degree and keep my sanity while doing it?” When you don’t have reliable living quarters, thats an issue.

Meanwhile the student living situation continues to go down the drain, a NEED that the school has. Other things have been abandoned.

The Whitley Student Services building. Badly in need of outdside repair. The Young Education South Building needs a bad facelift. We are known for being a top flight education school, so a large part of that school needs attention for students to learn in and attract more students.

Over the past couple of decades, the University has addressed the needs of the future from a infrastructure perspective. We needed a new student center, we got a new Rayburn Student Center. We needed a Nursing School Building that would also house Biomedical Sciences, we got it. We needed a planetarium, we got it. We needed a concert hall and a music school, we got it. Those things however, have not been recent.

I wonder what our campus would look like today if we had not spent the money on a Welcome Center for Indoor tailgating (seriously?), a move to Division I Athletics, and a brand renaming that was badly mishandled for the past 30 years, if we has spent that money on rennovating Whitley Hall, building new dorms for our growing student body, and reonnovating academic buildings.

And don’t get me started on Greek Housing. The University claims it wants Greeks but does not act like it because Greek life is the lowest it has been maybe ever, with the lone exception of when the school had 6,500 total students in the late 1990’s. Even then, the participation in Greek life was high. The Kappa Alpha’s had a house on Bryan Street, The Delts had a house on Live Oak, Pikes still have Pikeland, and everyone knew were the sorority houses were.

If you want to bring Greek life back, because it is important to the spirit of the school, why not rennovate the remaining Sorority Halls and BRING THE KA’s BACK and meet with the Fraternities on campus and ask them where they can live and what you can do. When most students join greek organizations, they tend to live in Greek housing, but that has gone down as well.

Whether the student is Greek or non-Greek, when it comes to so many facilities, the word has been this one. Neglect.

A great example is Prairie Crossing. I lived there when I was a student. They are barely 20 years old, as they finished in 2004. They were not property of the school, but were private apartments, but the school bought them fully in 2008, right after I graduated. They looked really great on the outside and inside but everytime I walk by them you can see that the outside is starting to need some serious TLC, and its not just about looks, but about feasibility and structural integrity, and that goes for all buildings.

Sherri Wilcox, a parent of an ET student and also a Lion herself said the following which I think is telling; “I lived there in 1978-1980. The dorm was brand new in March, 1970. I don’t think much has been done to maintain it since. Our freshman lived there last year and limped through some power and elevator outages; broken door locks, heat/AC issues, and horrible bathroom/shower conditions. I get the catch 22 of needing the living space, so they can’t shut it down. But gosh, these kids deserve better than this. It’s hard to watch the administration put so much into Division 1, the goal to become a Tier 1 research institution, emphasis on the Dallas campus, etc., and neglect the infrastructure of the Commerce campus. We’ve talked about the needs at the stadium among other issues. But student housing is a massively bad issue to ignore.”

I’m so glad she said what she said. We have been pouring money into things that our school DOES NOT NEED we have completely neglected the Commerce campus. How are we ever going to build a new stadium when we don’t pay attention to the housing of our own students? Everyone who listens to my podcast and reads these articles knows I want a new football stadium very much, but I want every student who comes to Commerce for college to have a first class experience LIVING in the town and living on campus. From food, to shelter, to all the needs a college student needs.

What the school needs to do is get down to College Station and create a plan to fix this issue or its going to cost us students and prestige. I know some will read this and cry about how negative I am for addressing this. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am wanting the school to be the best it can be and the only way you can do that is prioritize your MAIN campus. We are East Texas A&M University. Not Dallas A&M University, not DFW A&M. We are what we have been for 137 years.

If you you decide to rennovate Whitely Hall, you will need to build a new housing for students until Whitley gets rennovated, and if you do it, don’t get cheap on me, Dotson. (Jurassic Park Reference)

Another thing to mention is that in so many parts of our campus, we have a very attractive place to call our alma mater. The amphitheater, Rachel’s Garden, the walkway that leads from the Fieldhouse and Business School all the way to Whitley, The Sigma Chi House, The Heritage House, the University Gardens, Ferguson Hall, Binnion Hall, and Sowers North. It is certainly not all bad, but that does not need we need to do better. Actually we HAVE to do better.

So, before any other “nice to haves, but no necessary to haves” are even thought about, give the students a place to stay that they will enjoy and feel safe and comfortable in. Being Division I means being Division I in EVERYTHING.

Then they will stay in town on weekends for the football games, hit up Whataburger, Lone Star, or Buffalo Wild Wings after the games, stay up till 2 with friends, and wake up the next morning with a shower that they know will work and a room that is safe and quiet as they enjoy their college days, because for most of us, they were the best days of our lives, and I want to give that to this generation of students.