John S. Kyser Hall, built in 1968, is the largest building on Northwestern State University of Louisiana’s campus and the main academic building. Hundreds of students attend class every weekday during the school year, with Kyser Hall having four floors of classrooms, science labs, computer labs, a TV studio, offices and more. But any NSU student can speak on the quality of the components of this 56-year-old building.

There are two elevators that are out of order more often than not, wasps’ nests in the windows of the classrooms, temperature issues and bathrooms that are disregarded and in disrepair.

Kyser Hall is being set to be replaced as the main academic building by Alost Hall, which cost 44 million dollars and is going to be ‘state of the art.’ This is an amazing achievement by NSU and is desperately needed by students who deserve to learn in a building with working elevators, but this new building is still in the early stages of construction with no end date in sight. The new building will also not move every department to the new building, leaving those who stay behind with the same issues.

Should Kyser Hall be left to crumble while students sit and wait for a building that may not finish before they graduate? Could part of the money that NSU collects from students in tuition and fees go towards getting new toilet paper and paper towel holders and new stall doors?

If you were to walk into any of the bathrooms of any floor in Kyser Hall today, you would first have to find a stall with a door that closes and locks. Once you find one, your next task is to find the toilet paper, because 9 out of 10 times, it will not be on the holder on the wall because it is broken or missing entirely. While you use the restroom, you have time to read all the graffiti on the stall, which goes back for years. It is almost like a moment in time for students to leave their mark on the stall. Then, when you finish and leave the stall, you must find a working soap dispenser.

Do not try the ones on the wall, those are broken or empty, so you have to use the old-timey ones. Then find a sink to turn the water on to wash your hands, and then move to the next sink because water does not come out of the first sink.

Once you have finished all of these steps, it is then time to dry your hands. This is usually an important task because nobody likes to have wet hands, and you cannot go back to class with water dripping everywhere. Walk to the paper towel dispenser and prepare to be disappointed. It is empty, broken or both. But do not worry, there is a stack of paper towels out in the open, ready for you to grab. Dry your hands, throw it in the trash and go back to your class while thinking about where your thousands of dollars you pay to the university go to.

NSU employs lovely custodial workers who work very hard to keep the bathrooms and hallways clean, but unfortunately it is not their job to fix the things that have broken over time.

I cannot speak about the faculty and staff restrooms, as I have not been in them, but if I had to guess, they might be in the same state. Other buildings on campus have varying degrees of nice bathrooms. Morrison Hall has small, but clean and working bathrooms. But if you happen to live in University Columns, a dorm on campus, you might have water pouring out of a hole in your bathroom roof.

Since Kyser Hall is the main academic building on campus right now, and for the foreseeable future, I believe that NSU should allocate some portion of money to the renovating of the bathrooms.

Students are not asking for high tech hand dryers or motion sensor toilets but working soap dispensers and toilet paper holders on the wall. Who knows, maybe even new stall doors. Students who are paying to earn a degree should have the necessities in their academic building, like working elevators and bathroom stalls that lock.