The Memorial Gymnasium is in
a sorry plight. During the week it is
overcrowded, and on weekends it is
worse. But this is not the worst of
it; since there is no door-check at
any time to see who is coming in,
unsupervised children of about the
age of five or six are wandering
around the gym, playing dangerously
with the weights and pulleys, and
using the track as a slide, just barely
preventing themselves from slipping
some 25 feet down to the basketball
courts below by grabbing on to
the track guardrail. Not as serious
but certainly annoying are the dogs
parading through the locker-rooms,
depositing their excrement in various
corners. The youngsters, moreover,
cannot resist the toilet tissue,
and strew it all over the place,
including the sink drains, into
which they wad it to clog them.
On weekends the gym is open,
but there are apparently not even
maintenance men on hand. At a
minimum, I recommend to the
administration that if it does not
want to be responsible by neglect
for the death or serious injury of
some youngster, that it provide
some supervisory personnel at all
times. I would also strongly recommend
that a door-check be set up
so that only students, faculty, and
their guests, for whom the former
would be responsible, be admitted.
The gymnasium is just barely
adequate to the needs of the
students and faculty of the University,
but when local high school
students start sharing the facilities,
those facilities are inadequate. An
overcrowded weightlifting room,
especially one in which elementary
school children are wandering
about, is a remarkably dangerous
place.
Frank Schipani
Graduate student
English Department
