By Maya Field and Georgia Wearing
If you ever needed a visual metaphor for the prosperity gap in Aotearoa, or even globally, you can just look at the buildings at the Kelburn Campus of Te Herenga Waka. While some rooms have four televisions, others have chairs with the fabric worn off, leaving the yellow foam as seat and upholstery. Some buildings have a nice, wide staircase, with a decent sized lift. Von Zedlitz has an elevator that barely works (it’s more of a joyride than a functioning transport device) and stairs that are reminiscent of a slip n’ slide.
When we asked Salient readers if they had noticed any stark differences between lecture theatres, the results were fairly expected: yes, the differences are huge, and students are fed up. One student points out that the rooms in Te Toki a Rata were ‘crazy souped up with a TV screen for every desk and microphones [...] but lectures/tutorials in Fairlie Terrace, which is RANK and COLD and barely has any WiFi connection.’
HM205 caught some flack for its ‘super loud air-conditioning system which made it really hard to concentrate,’ and the fact that the university was contacted by a lecturer about the issue, and no changes were made. A student also noted the lower level rooms of Von Zedlitz having ‘holes in the ceiling and water dripping.’
Students at the International Institute of Modern Letters will be familiar with Room 102 of 16 Waiteata Road. Despite being the main room used for VUW’s creative writing workshops, it’s basically a sunroom with one fan. As someone who spends three hours a week in that room, it would be lovely even just to have a second fan, especially in these warmer mornings. Maybe my tune will change as it gets colder. Or maybe the university could assist with climate control that doesn't solely rely on the weather.
The theatre school was also the centre of attention for shitty uni buildings. People came in with general sentiments of it being ‘a mess.’ FT77 is fairly inaccessible, with a set of ‘really narrow stairs,’ that ‘the disabled students are just kind of expected to get over, as far as I’m aware?’ Students have been asking for an elevator for at least six years, according to another student, but nothing has been done to accommodate the school’s disabled students.
In fairness to our institution, the building is old, so a new elevator would be difficult to construct. But, that doesn’t change the fact that it is inaccessible, and that there isn’t an alternative, accessible route.
After all of these classrooms with seemingly endless problems, you venture into Te Toki a Rata, or level 3 in Murphy, or you peer into those mysterious science labs, and then you realise that that’s where the money goes. Of course, I’m not saying that those faculties and rooms don’t deserve money, but it’s hard to feel bad for STEM students when they have air conditioning, and I’m sweating on wooden seats.
There are also areas on Kelburn campus that could be used as classrooms, but are storing chairs, paper towels, and piles upon piles of broken furniture. Some are simply abandoned, with the vulgar scrawls of former students burned into the dry whiteboards. Similar to these rooms, are the houses along Fairlie Terrace that are owned yet also rarely used, stretching the campus thin and spreading the uni’s spending out.
But what have the university higher-ups done to resolve these issues? Are they even aware of them? Obviously they’re aware of them, as they’ve locked the rooms storing paper towels and unused furniture, lest a student tries to take them. Instead, the University has bought out space used by polytechnics to become a larger tertiary conglomerate while it bleeds money with all its unused space.
All of these rooms, with all of their problems (or overcompensating solutions) are coming from a university that campaigns for students to return to in-person lectures. Of course, this asks the question: how can the university ask its students for higher rates of in-person attendance, when its classrooms work against the students trying to access them?