UNA: How Big Can We Grow?

UNA has finally said, “Just how big can we grow?” Growth is good, but you can’t expect that many students from the Atlanta or similar areas to rush to our local university. Nor can you expect the Chinese and other foreign students to be a stable commodity. For all we know, the mainland Chinese government is planning a massive evacuation from this country after January 20th. Do we think it will happen? No, but it’s a possibility.

Somehow, for whatever reason, the powers that be at the university were not in sync concerning enrollment and parking. The university was not a good neighbor to those who reside on streets crossing Pine. Shame on it.

Let’s look at another aspect of the university’s current policies. Freshmen whose families don’t live within a certain distance of the campus are required to live in on-campus housing. Sure, the housing is there now, but what about supervision? These are 17 and 18 year-old kids who have never been on their own before, who may not have had to live by rules before. Think how many incidents have taken place on campus in the last two years involving these frosh.

The recent rape/non-rape is a perfect example. We now have four freshmen/former freshmen arrested for assault. We’re told at least two of them didn’t return for a second semester at the university. Is this the normal attrition rate or did this assault play into the students dropping out?

The university may well be on top of some of these problems. After all, the TotallyDecatur reports 100% of the good news concerning local institutions and only 10% of the bad.

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One of our readers thought it was a cheap shot to predict Steve Pierce would now campaign for a new stadium. We didn’t intend it to be such. We have already seen one or two citizens publicly comment on the just “adequate” facilities. Let’s assume we will have to wait for UNA to be a money-producing athletic institution before there’s a new stadium. How many years will that be?

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Our L. Stone has suggested UNA could use the elegant facilities at Muscle Shoals. Could it? Are Muscle Shoals readers having apoplexy just reading about the possibility?

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The Collier Library roof? If any readers know the status of this, let us know. It’s long overdue.