It isn’t easy being negative all the time. Hannah was 19 years old when she started writing for Nexus and now she is 32 with frown lines. And that all happened this year. But we, the collective team at Nexus, who sit in our unairconditioned tower wondering why we can’t just take the BurgerFuel vouchers for ourselves, don’t want to be these people who just find fault. So we have decided to give Quigley and his B-Block minions some genuinely simple fixes to campus.
Music
This one is so obvious it should be smacking everyone in the face. The key to life is noise. Develop a system where people can request songs, hit shuffle for eight hours a day and have it play on speakers through campus. We could even record and play news bulletins on the hour in English, Māori, and Mandarin. For those spaces that don’t need music constantly playing then just add a piano or a guitar.
Shade, Seats, And Solar Power
Put some permanent seating on the green, add a shade sail for when it’s hot and a cover for winter, and make sure those seats have solar charging stations.
Make A Student Bar For People, Not For Profit
Anyone who thinks that what students want is a bar in a circular building, run by people who give you $12 salads has no idea what they are doing. Build a new weights room and let the Students’ Union use the old one for a venue to host student balls, concerts, and 21sts. Every Thursday to Saturday have the bar shut at 12am and have the patrons take a student owned bus into town if they wish. Make it a double decker bus just for the hell of it.
M.O.G.A.
Make Orientation Great Again. A 60-million dollar complex is great if it actually has people use it. It’s time both the University and the WSU thought big again and planned to bring some of the biggest touring acts to campus instead of to a bar near campus.
Be The Sports University You So Desperately Want To Be
We have Hillary scholars, why not just build a proper sports precinct with a stadium and a heated pool. Why is it that St Peters has a better Campus than a University?
Pūtikitiki and the Conch work great! Do it again, and again, and again!
At this point we hope we aren’t telling anyone anything new but if you want to get people to stay, give them a place to stay. Māori and Pacific spaces worked because it gave both tauira groups a place of responsibility on campus. So just make more. Tell Pita Pit to move to the Village Green and then put in an LGBT+ space, a mature student space, and an accessibility space. Extend Lady Goodfellow and create a multifaith (so it doesn’t go all Gloriavale) precinct. Give the sports clubs the Don and let them run it themselves on match days.
And finally, if you can’t or won’t do anything else on this list then for the love of whichever God a Vice-Chancellor prays to, put in the damn bakery.
