We all have, or will have, those moments in life that show our age. For the majority of us, it might be the first time we reject cartoons in order to watch more “mature” television shows. Later on it might be the first time we forget where we put our glasses even though they are on top of our heads, or it could be the first time we pull a muscle we don’t even know exists while playing sports.
Thankfully, A&M-Commerce as a whole has the ability to constantly upgrade itself; the individual parts, however, are just like a person, and therefore tend to show signs of their age. Whitley Hall did this last Sunday when a section of bricks came crashing down onto the pavement.
Something like this had to happen sometime. The building is over 40 years old, after all. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything that put students in any sort of immediate risk and appears to be easy to deal with. We at The East Texan have been wondering if this is a sign that our university needs to look deeper into the issue of our older buildings. Smith and Berry Hall have been in service for many years as well, along with other campus buildings that constantly need to be watched.
As we move forward from this incident, we hope A&M-Commerce administrators will truly do all they can to ensure the buildings students are learning and living in remain secure, both inside and out. As we grow, more students will add to any strain felt by our campus facilities. It is imperative that they get more attention now than ever before. The Whitley incident could have been worse had those bricks fallen at the right time. We hope that is how our university is looking at this incident; not as a lucky break, but as a near miss.