UA's $400,000 fountain

From the Tuscaloosa News:

The last fountains at the University of Alabama were demolished when campus administrators learned college students and freestanding pools of running water don’t mix.

This time, university leaders are banking that almost half a million dollars will buy a nearly foolproof fountain, avoiding the mornings when administrators arrived on campus to find fountains bubbling with laundry detergent.

Construction began this month on the first fountain on UA’s campus in about 15 years. Another is slated to begin construction in the spring.

With a price tag of a little more than $400,000, the two fountains are part of a larger beautification of the campus, which Tim Leopard, assistant vice president for construction, maintains is good use of university money.

Good use? Sounds more like a frivolous luxury to me, but I guess the University can afford it. Back in May, the Board of Trustees agreed to raise next year's in-state tuition by 8.5%. That comes on top of back-to-back increases of 16.25% and 12.2% the two preceding years, in addition to a 17% increase in funding from the state this year.

Then, there's the $18 million the feds are kicking in to build two new parking decks and the $1.5 million they are providing for a campus shuttle system so that students (heaven forbid) won't have to walk so far to class.

Well, back in my day...we walked to class every day...a mile, maybe two, each way...risking our lives to cross University Boulevard...wary of the bricks that would occasionally fall from Denny Chimes...dodging crazed bicyclists on the sidewalks...avoiding traveling preachers and preying credit card salesmen...navigating through the treacherous bog pits of the Quad. Yes, we did all that, and we liked it. Sure, having some fancy-schmancy water-squirter to cool us off in the stifling 100-degree Tuscaloosa heat would have been nice, but we learned that if you needed to cool off for a few minutes, you could always duck into the Women's Studies building, where it was always oddly frigid.

Oh well. Progress is progress, I suppose, but if you notice a bunch of fat, wet college kids running sitting around Tuscaloosa this fall, don't say I didn't warn you.