Written by: Gene Cole

If anything plagues students’ eyes as they venture to Burnaby campus each week, it’s the endless amount of construction. It’s become so normal that we don’t think about it as we walk. We just accept that nothing will ever be finished and treat the hum of power tools and construction vehicles like the sounds of nature.

So with the student union building disappearing, we would finally rest — wait, never mind, they’re repairing something in the AQ. There returns the sound of construction workers earning their rent again, and all we have is a better view of the road where that one old construction project used to be. We’re a university campus, every building that’s finished or cancelled just lets another one roll in. For all we know the student union building will start anew somewhere else on the mountain.

At least without this building, we’ll finally have that building fee struck from our tuition. But being $50, and with most students not knowing what that was even for, many people won’t even notice or appreciate it being gone. We still have more than plenty of fees, and some similar fee is bound to replace it when another inevitable construction project comes along — sooner or later, the school or SFSS is going to feel the need to expand again.

Would it be a better world if the eternally in-progress building were to disappear? Probably for a semester or two. But this is post-secondary; paying for buildings that we only get to see open in our last year is just part of the job. We’ve waited this long for the SUB, we might as well bear through the last few months (ideally).