Shutting down Paresky when few people use it makes sense to me for environmental (and also economical) reasons. However, if everything is staying on, why can’t students be inside?

1) Explore compromise options. If the architecture permits, there is no reason to heat the whole building if you can sustain a one open room for work. Sadly, I am willing to bet the systems don’t permit.

2) Goodrich is still closed. That was definitely very popular for late night studying. The unavailability there should definitely be factored into decisions now. With Goodrich and Paresky closed, the only decent space I can think off outside of a dorm to work is the science complex, aside from small places like the minority houses, etc.

3) The nice thing about this case, at least, is no one suspects the administration of being disingenuous in its statements of motivation. Sustainability is a real issue, certainly I assume for Merrill as the former leader of CES, and also for the college, and this is a clear cut case where it is reasonable to weigh. However, 24 hour access to the new student center was a feature of it, a promise made about it by administrators at all levels—I heard this personally from Morty, Dean Roseman, a number of times. Doesn’t mean you can’t honestly change your mind when you’ve got new data, though.

4) Long term lesson: students were on the policy committee that made this decision, and one of the students on it, Samantha Peterson ’08, is publicly against the decision. This is a case where CC and students in general should learn what they haven’t yet, that those student-faculty committees are critical to keep tabs on. Official CC rules require a rep from each committee to make a public address in CC once a month, and these rules ceased to be observed in 2004-5. They should be used, since most committees do not do their own work to make their agendas public. CC should follow up with the student reps if it is dissatisfied with the decision of the cmte they served on.