Alex Gervais ’28
Managing Editor
This year I felt particularly excited to come back to campus; maybe it was the fact that our summer break was oddly long with a late labor day, or that I’m extra excited for my classes this semester, but my hour and forty five minute drive to campus from the Boston suburbs was more joyously anxious than it ever has been.
Lugging our moving bags to the door of our dorm, my roommates and I saw an old, rusted out water fountain (it’s called a bubbler, but I won’t draw a line in the sand there) right outside. We went to give it a try and lo and behold, it didn’t work. Color me surprised.
My freshman year that water fountain would’ve stayed off; my roommates and I would be taking turns putting less and less water in our Brita from the bathroom sink until one of us caved and spent five minutes filling it all the way up. I would’ve chalked it up as par for the course; sure it would be impacting our student experience, but not in a super meaningful way. It would’ve been more of a symbol, a campus idle, one that doesn’t put top value on student experience.
But to our surprise, as we walked up the stairs and onto our floor after our Wednesday morning microeconomics class, we found a new water fountain being installed right outside of our door. We stood in the hall with our neighbors and watched as a work crew put the final touches on our free-stream of filtered water, high tech blue-light LED system and all. We celebrated as the workers turned the valve open and clean water came forth from this sleek, black fountain. It was a brief moment of community, a reminder that we can bond over even the littlest parts of our shared student experience that so often go overlooked.
And that might be the takeaway, that improvements to student life can make this place as beautiful as it should be. Those who’ve read my opinions over my years here at the Tripod know I have a penchant for critique, a tendency to look at what this campus can, but is not doing. I’ve lambasted administrations for the quelling of student political voice on campus and lack of transparency in our endowment; I’ve been deeply concerned with the promulgation of artificial intelligence in academic spaces and the trend of future Bantams embracing careers in private equity.
Yet, this week I can’t help but be a little bit hopeful. I look out over our campus and things feel like they’re getting better, not worse. Even as small liberal arts colleges struggle to retain enrollment growth—see Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts closing at the end of last academic year, Trinity improved its enrollment this year, with a full freshman class for the first time since I’ve been at Trinity. I write in news this week about improvements to campus dining and infrastructure, things the student body has been waiting to be delivered for years. We could’ve spent our semester complaining about the useless water fountain outside our door or that the heat in the library didn’t work right, but somebody, somewhere paid attention to fine details and made positive changes.
The Lugo administration has set a high bar for this year, and I’m glad. We should be a campus that aspires, one that supplies not just a normal, NESCAC education, but one that strives to deliver the “bold, independent thinkers” that it has promised to the world. Good, adequate campus facilities are a great first step in fulfilling this goal.
Last time I checked, our floor had saved 285 plastic bottles according to the little reader on top of the water fountain. Here’s to tens of thousands more.