RRC lacks student needs

It's been a year since Round Rock Campus has opened and while it is a gorgeous campus to look at, we've noticed its flaws.

Most notable is the lack of food choices. In building 2000 there is a Simon's food cart which offers limited choices that include baked goods, chips, sandwiches, coffee, and other refrigerated items. Even though it is great that students at least have this option, it's hard to purchase a sandwich that was delivered in the morning in the middle of the afternoon.

There's also the elephant in the room: the large empty room behind the doors next to the Simon's cart originally built to house a cafeteria.

Round Rock Campus Project Manager Paul Mason said, in the article Students hungry for more choices published in our Sept. 21, 2010 issue, that initial plans were to have two vendors on campus offering students at RRC more food choices than any other campus in the ACC district.

Mason attributed the lack of vendors to the economy and cited a two-year contract with Simon's Cafe.

It's easy to place blame on the economy, but if ACC wants to attract vendors to build on campus, they need to act quickly.

A new Sonic opened shortly after the start of this semester and the parking lot is almost always full. In addition a McDonald's is being built west of campus near an existing Burger King. Plus there is are several restaurants off of I-35 nearby.

With potential vendors opening off-campus, why would anyone want to build on-campus?

ACC has wasted tax-payer money by allowing such unsuccessful and under-utilized amenities to remain on-campus.

The empty cafeteria isn't the only under-utilized amenity

on-campus that tax-payers have paid for. There's also the outdoor amphitheater which has held no more than a handful of shows or events and looks like an out-of-place concrete pit behind the campus. In addition, RRC is home to an unnecessary water fountain feature.

The fountain, like all fountains, is pretty to look at, but other than serving aesthetic purposes it doesn't really cohere with ACC's goal of being a green community college district. It was functioning when freezing temperatures hit the area last winter and now its off and looks just like a pool of murky water while most of Texas is in a drought.

The college hasn't even acknowledged to students how to cope with the lack of public transportation, which is the biggest offense of not adhering to being a green campus.

The campus is too far to ride a bicycle to and Capital Metro does not have a service route that stops within walking distance.

Because there isn't an alternative, students and staff have no choice but to drive gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing vehicles to and from campus. How green is that? Especially when parking lots are always full (not counting the special green parking spaces up closer to the campus).

What sets RRC apart from other campuses isn't the multi- million dollar state of the art medical facilities used to teach health sciences students, the vast library, modern automotive service facility, or even the under-utilized amenities. It's the fact that the campus is literally apart from other campuses and feels disconnected.

Without public transportation connecting RRC with other campuses to make up for the lengthy distance between it and its nearest campus, RRC feels isolated. It's as if RRC is its own campus entirely and not just one piece of the ACC district.

Administrators need to stop ignoring everything that RRC lacks and answer students' demands for better solutions to the issues that plague us at RRC.