Home Sweet Home?

Lookin' Good: campus changes are a good thing.

You can go home again. Home just might be a little different. Take our dear university, for example. If it has been a while since you have been to campus, things might appear to be a little unlike you remember them. Do not worry, do not be afraid. Accept change. Change is a good thing, I assure you. Take, for example, the brand spankin' new W.T. Young Library. This library well merits the fundraising and time it took for it to be achieved. As overwhelming as it is in size, it is well worth a visit. Or several, for that matter. From state of the art computers and technology to an artistic display of handmade quilts, there is so much to see and learn that one could spend hour after hour there. Trust me, I have experience there. The shelving system is amazing. One touch of a button and the shelves condense or expand, allowing the book you are looking for to be at your fingertips. All this means more space for more books. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved. The Young Library also holds a copy center, a computer lab and an audio visual center where students can check out laptop computers to work on anything from papers to Internet surfing. These services are especially helpful for pulling all nighters on that English midterm you procrastinators forgot to do. Alas, a new library means that not so many students, especially freshman, will be lost forever in the dark dizzying stacks of M. I. King, to spend their days wondering where in the world they are and how, exactly, they got there. That is not to say that the old library is of no use. It still houses the Special Collections and other libraries around campus are now housed there. Another change that you may notice during the game is that Commonwealth Stadium is getting a well deserved facelift. After 25 years, the powers that be decided that an expansion was needed to accommodate the growing numbers of fans who flock to see the Air Raid. It is a well known fact that a winning football program, or at least one that wins some games as opposed to very few, will draw in larger crowds. Commonwealth's expansion will hold 70,000 screaming UK fans when it is done. Those fans have something to scream about too. Hal Mumme is leading UK's Air Raid offense into Reload in his second year at the helm. Last year's squad went 5-6 and Mumme and crew are hoping to improve on that this year. They are currently 3-1 and have been in the top 25 of recent polls. Also missing from campus maps is Anderson Hall, which was torn down over the summer to make way for a new engineering complex. After the building was gone, I had to do a double take. I walked a little slower to make sure I was in the right location. I thought to myself, "Now, wait one minute...didn't there USED to be a building there?" as I looked at the rubble heaps behind a fence. Besides Commonwealth's expansion and the new library, there is also another newer addition to campus that helped to ease some woes in the crowded parking lots. The new parking structure on South Limestone relieves some of the parking problems UK has, but just a few. Now, if only UK would stop selling too many parking permits for too few spots. It might be nice if they stopped giving tickets, too, but I am not holding my breath on that one. I guess all this just goes to show that although some things have changed, at least one thing remains true. UK's tradition of value presents itself to today's students the same way it did to the students of years gone past.

Email: hlstan1@pop.uky.edu