The students are the most important aspect to the University, right? Villanova’s mission is to cater to the needs and wants of the approximately 6,300 students that inhabit the University daily.

The buildings are renovated for the students’ use, the grounds are maintained for the enjoyment of the students’ and the food is prepared to satisfy the students’ as well. However, events leading up to and on Candidates’ Day last Saturday, seemed to suggest otherwise. The recent influx of construction on Campus, most notably in the Quad, seems highly coincidental with the arrival of hundreds of prospective students and their families. Could it be that the renovations were not done for the students, but instead for the University’s visitors?

There is nothing wrong with cleaning up for guests; most people do want to look their best when they entertain. The problem comes in to play when that is the only time that positive changes occur. Prior to spring break, construction began on the Quad and the absence of students from the campus for a week provided a perfect opportunity for the majority of the construction to be completed.

Instead, little to no progress was made on the project and the students returned to find themselves walking through sticks and mud and waking up, often very early, to the obnoxious noise outside. The project was moving along at a very slow rate, until the middle of last week, when the work pace began to pick up. By the time Friday morning rolled around the urgency and time crunch of the workers was evident as the Quad was transformed into a much more attractive area, with the placement of sod, landscaping and general clean-up of the grounds and outside appearance of the buildings.

Students commented on how “nice” it looked, but knew that the clean-up was not for their benefit, but was for the anticipated candidates.

Many students were also irked at the fact that after months of walking through a half-finished project, it took little more than a day of frantic work to finish it. Similar situations occurred on Parents’ Day in the fall with the construction of Bartley. The University loves to do all it can to impress its guests; it caters food in dining halls and does all it can to make it appear that Villanova is a great place to go to school. It would be nice if the University would remember to do this the rest of the school year.

After all, it is the students that are paying to go to school here, not its visitors. And speaking of the visitors, shouldn’t they have the same experience that a typival Villanovan student is treated to daily. After all, the students are the University’s number one priority, every day are they not?